Sections

`Dead Man' is furiously alive

At that moment, when you are sitting in the theater and the curtain rolls back, you have the feeling that something great can happen up there on the screen. Sometimes, as with "Dead Man Walking," you get a film that fulfills your wish.

Tim Robbins, in his second directorial effort, hits the bulls-eye. He packs his film with so many close-up shots of his characters that their faces become living landscapes. A split-second, downward glance or a tremble of the lip reveals a character's empathy or need, despair or hope, guilt or innocence.

Robbins knows when (and when not) to get us to feel for the players. He drenches Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) in mint-colored sweaters and white, short-sleeved tee-shirts, and places her on couches and living room chairs, giving her a cool, soft, kind quality. A nun, she lives in the "slums" where she helps inner-city youths and where she hears from Matthew Poncelet. He writes her a letter from death row saying, "You're all I got."

Matthew ("I feel like an animal being made fat for the slaughter") comes across as human; he is cut off from what few family members he has. Sarandon's character visits the prison, and we get incredible exchanges between the two actors. Sarandon's endearing eyes and wispy voice gush with nurturing, which plays off of Penn's twitchiness and lack of eye-contact. Penn's and Sarandon's performances give the characters a splendiferous quality that perhaps transcend even what Robbins intended.

Like Sister Prejean, we have an oscillation of feelings for Matthew. This becomes one of the true pleasures of the film. On one hand, we sympathize with him; on the other, we cannot overlook what he is charged him with. He claims he didn't rape a teenage girl and then murder her and her boyfriend in the woods; he says he was stoned out of his mind; he admits he kept them from escaping; he claims his buddy (now imprisoned as well) did everything else.

Helen more or less asks Matthew if he thinks she's Bozo's wife, Bozie. She sees the hate inside him -- hate as burning as the red swastika tattooed on the inner, tender part of his forearm.

But we get black-and-white sequences of the brutality. We see Matthew's friend committing the crime, while Matthew watches in a detached daze. Robbins doesn't clue us in: Are the sequences the truth -- Matthew remembering -- or are they just imagination -- Helen picturing the event as Matthew describes it to her? We feel the suspense. We want to know.

Sister Prejean begs Matthew to tell her play-by-play -- every detail -- of what went on that night. At this point, Robbins' investment in the characters pays off: We feel as desperate as she does to get Matthew to open up. The second hands on the prison clocks unwind with sickening, nightmarish speed as the moment of his execution nears. No one can rewind time and set everything right. We yearn for the only thing possible: For Matthew to get redemption -- both literally (a new trial), and spiritually (forgiveness).