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Starring |
Christopher Eccleston
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Tom Courtenay
,
Eileen Atkins
,
Paul Reynolds
,
Tom Bell
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Directed By |
Peter Medak
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Audio
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Dolby Digital 2.0
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Visuals
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4:3 Fullscreen
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Running Time |
103 mins
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UK Release Date |
August 9, 2010
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Genre |
Drama
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Our Rating |
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User Rating |
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It is a strange truth that even today, more than 40 years after hanging was abolished, opinion polls consistently show that a majority of Britons would support the restoration of the death penalty. One wonders if they would still feel the same after way after watching this film, Christopher Eccleston’s first ever, from 1991.
Eccleston plays Derek Bentley, a youngster in austerity struck Britain, who suffers both from epilepsy and from a mental age close to that of a young child. It’s 1952 and Britain is hardly a hotbed of gun crime and teen disobedience. Despite this, Bentley falls in with a bad crowd obsessed with American gangster films. One night, he finds himself caught up in a warehouse burglary with 16 year old Christopher Craig (Paul Reynolds of 1980s children’s drama, Press Gang). Bentley is soon arrested but before returning to the station, Craig ends up pointing a gun at one of the police. The policeman asks for the gun. Then Bentley shouts out the words, “Let him have it, Chris.” Craig fires and the officer is killed. But what did “let him have it” mean? Was Bentley urging his friend to hand over the weapon or encouraging him to open fire?
This point becomes crucial as Craig is too young to hang and despite his low IQ and epilepsy, it is Bentley instead who faces the prospect of the gallows.
Despite depicting events that are now close to 60 years old and being nearly 20 years old itself, Medak’s film remains intensely powerful and at times, particularly towards the end, becomes almost unbearably moving. Medak who also directed The Krays and Romeo Is Bleeding otherwise never lived up to his promise as a director but here captures both the sense of period and injustice well.
Otherwise, with a stellar cast of veterans (Courtenay, Atkins, Bell) and the then rising star Eccleston all on excellent form, this is a criminal injustice drama in the same class as Richard Fleischer’s 10 Rillington Place, Mike Newell’s Dance With A Stranger or Jim Sheridan’s In The Name Of The Father.
Overall Verdict: A damning indictment of the death penalty and a compelling piece of British cinema.
Reviewer: Chris Hallam
