Werner Herzog's new film is a meditation on what it is that makes us kill; us, as in the struggling, sub-literate underbelly of Conroe, Texas, and us, as in a society which evidently believes that putting inmates to death will somehow absolve us of the guilt of breeding a society in which three people will give up their lives for a red Chevy Camero. In a nice moment of Herzogian "ecstatic truth", it is revealed that a tree grew through the chassis of the Camaro while it was parked in a police impound lot.
Herzog relentlessly interviews the two men convicted of the crime, Jason Burkett, who will be eligible for parole in 2041, and Michael Perry, who was executed by lethal injection eight days after Herzog interviewed him. He also interviews the surviving family members of the victims, the death row chaplain, the captain of the team of law enforcement officers tasked with preparing those to be executed, and some of those who had shared Perry and Burkett's environment at the time of the crimes. Perhaps most perplexing is the interview with Burkett's wife, who makes it clear that she is not a "death row groupie", despite stating that she was in love with Burkett before she ever met him. The interviews shed light on a society in which I suspect I wouldn't last six hours: the brother of one of the victims, who was arrested for parole violations at his brother's funeral; the acquaintance of Burkett's, who hasn't been in trouble with the law, "just the one felony", who Burkett stabbed in the side with a phillips-head screwdriver "about that long", and who learned to read in prison; the surviving relative of two of the victims, who seems to have lost all of her relatives, "and the family dog", to violent death and illness. Burkett and Perry maintain their individual innocence, blaming each other, with Burkett implicating a third man present at their capture, who would appear to be a figment of his imagination.
Every bit as harrowing are the interviews with Burkett's father, a multiple felon who takes responsibility for raising a son like Burkett, and the two prison officials, the chaplain who witters on about not running over squirrels on the golf course, and the prison official who had seen to the wants of those about to die before strapping down their left ankles to the gurney. After presiding at the execution of Karla Fay Tucker, he was essentially haunted by the memory of all those he had strapped down, and wound up quitting his job.
And that is perhaps the question at the heart of Herzog's film: is it more absurd to kill three people for a red Camero, or to kill hundreds of people for an abstraction called "Justice"?
Herzog relentlessly interviews the two men convicted of the crime, Jason Burkett, who will be eligible for parole in 2041, and Michael Perry, who was executed by lethal injection eight days after Herzog interviewed him. He also interviews the surviving family members of the victims, the death row chaplain, the captain of the team of law enforcement officers tasked with preparing those to be executed, and some of those who had shared Perry and Burkett's environment at the time of the crimes. Perhaps most perplexing is the interview with Burkett's wife, who makes it clear that she is not a "death row groupie", despite stating that she was in love with Burkett before she ever met him. The interviews shed light on a society in which I suspect I wouldn't last six hours: the brother of one of the victims, who was arrested for parole violations at his brother's funeral; the acquaintance of Burkett's, who hasn't been in trouble with the law, "just the one felony", who Burkett stabbed in the side with a phillips-head screwdriver "about that long", and who learned to read in prison; the surviving relative of two of the victims, who seems to have lost all of her relatives, "and the family dog", to violent death and illness. Burkett and Perry maintain their individual innocence, blaming each other, with Burkett implicating a third man present at their capture, who would appear to be a figment of his imagination.
Every bit as harrowing are the interviews with Burkett's father, a multiple felon who takes responsibility for raising a son like Burkett, and the two prison officials, the chaplain who witters on about not running over squirrels on the golf course, and the prison official who had seen to the wants of those about to die before strapping down their left ankles to the gurney. After presiding at the execution of Karla Fay Tucker, he was essentially haunted by the memory of all those he had strapped down, and wound up quitting his job.
And that is perhaps the question at the heart of Herzog's film: is it more absurd to kill three people for a red Camero, or to kill hundreds of people for an abstraction called "Justice"?