Review: The Penalty

Although I’m personally not terribly interested in the subject of lethal injection itself, this 2015 documentary from Will Francome and Mark Pizzey does at least focus on a few different points of view on the topic of capital punishment. However, the downside in that is that the film ends up just a tad unfocussed at times. For the most part it focuses on lethal injection, but it also tries to cram in some other stuff, albeit stuff that was more interesting to me, personally. It’s ultimately not as strong as it could’ve been. It’s still worth a look if you’re interested in the subject matter, or if you want to see Florida State’s Attorney Angela Corey make herself look absolutely horrid for accusing a victim’s mother of being more concerned with publicity than in the proper punishment for her child’s murderer. You don’t get to do that to a person who has gone through such a tragedy.

The film is on its surest ground when dealing with wrongful convictions and the agonising wait involved in the administration of the death penalty for all parties involved. I’m personally against the death penalty (Largely because it’s too easy to make mistakes in the courts/investigations, but also because death seems too easy a punishment for the worst members of human society), and I’m glad there’s an appeals process available, but I can also sympathise with the families of victims with all the dicking around it takes to get shit done. However, those parts of the film weren’t the main concern of the filmmakers nor some of the documentary subjects/participants.

I was less interested in the lethal injection issue in regards to its effectiveness and whether it’s humane or not. It’s certainly not as quick and easy a process as some would have you believe, so I get it. However, the lethal injection issue is not as appealing a film to me personally, and it seems to be what the filmmakers are more interested in. If you’re into this part of the capital punishment debate, your mileage may greatly differ to mine. I still think you’ll likely agree that the film overall is unfocussed and stuffed with a little too much material that doesn’t entirely get fleshed out. In fact, the ex-death row inmate featured could’ve been a fascinating film subject on his own.

Although the death penalty is itself perfect fodder for a documentary, this film falters by getting side-tracked from time to time. Even when it does try to focus on something specific like lethal injection, that’s the least compelling thing on show here for me personally. It’s sometimes interesting, but ultimately frustrating.

Rating: C+