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Movies / On DVD / Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman
Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman

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Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2007)

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Reviews Counted:50

Fresh:38

Rotten:12

Average Rating:7/10

Consensus: Director Adrian Shergold doesn't shy away from the darker elements of the movie's subject, and Timothy Spall is mesmerizing as the title character.

Rated: R [See Full Rating] for disturbing images, nudity and brief sexuality

Runtime: 90 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Jun 1, 2007 Limited

Synopsis: Timothy Spall (Professor Pettigrew from the Harry Potter movies) gives a magnificently multilayered performance as the protagonist in PIERREPOINT: THE LAST HANGMAN. Spall plays Albert Pierrepoint,... Timothy Spall (Professor Pettigrew from the Harry Potter movies) gives a magnificently multilayered performance as the protagonist in PIERREPOINT: THE LAST HANGMAN. Spall plays Albert Pierrepoint, a grocery deliveryman who decides to apply for his father's old job--a hangman for the British courts. Soon he is perfecting the execution procedure, fulfilling his duties in record time and with no problems whatsoever. Though proud of his success, Pierrepoint prefers to keep it to himself, not even telling his wife, Anne (Juliet Stevenson), what he does when he leaves the house for days at a time. But when General Montgomery himself (Clive Francis) asks Pierrepoint to execute dozens of Nazis who have been sentenced to death, for the first time Pierrepoint starts questioning what he does, and soon his relatively calm, quiet world is turned upside down. Based on a true story, PIERREPOINT: THE LAST HANGMAN is a gripping period drama, bathed in grays by cinematographer Danny Cohen and production designer Candida Otton. Spall is mesmerizing as Pierrepoint, his slow walk and penetrating eyes filling the screen. Stevenson is excellent as his loyal wife, standing by him through thick and thin. PIERREPOINT is directed with careful precision by Adrian Shergold, a longtime actor and television director who trained at the feet of Mike Leigh, who has cast Spall in many of his own films. And Eddie Marsan excels as Tish, a compatriot of Pierrepoint's who lands himself in a very nasty bit of trouble. [More]

Starring: Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson, Eddie Marsan, James Corden

Starring: Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson, Eddie Marsan, James Corden, Christopher Fulford, Tobias Menzies, Tim Woodward

Director: Adrian Shergold

Director: Adrian Shergold
Screenwriter: Bob Mills, Jeff Pope
Producer: Christine Langan
Composer: Martin Phipps
Studio: IFC Films

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Release:

Oct 30, 2007

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Reviews for Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman

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21 - 40 (sorted by date)
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You have to wonder just how true to life the melodramatic depiction of these events is.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
06/08/07
V.A. Musetto
V.A. Musetto
New York Post

Whether the real Pierrepoint, who died in 1992, had a clear conscience, the portly Spall creates the perfect impression of a quietly decent, proud man who is overwhelmed by unwanted celebrity and by one too many jerking ropes.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
06/08/07
Jack Mathews
Jack Mathews
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An emotionally powerful drama about the dirty business of capital punishment.

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
06/08/07
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

The shocker near the end is one of the more heartbreaking pieces of cinema in quite a while.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Insiders | comment Comment
06/08/07
Eric Lurio
Eric Lurio
Entertainment Insiders

As this sad, shambling antihero swings from one pole to the other on the issue of capital punishment, you are inclined to follow every step of the way toward his tragic enlightenment.

comment Comment
06/08/07
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

the end result feels like business as usual done by-the-book.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
06/07/07
Chris Cabin
Chris Cabin
Filmcritic.com

This measured bio-production might be viewed as a lesser companion piece to Vera Drake -- although in the case of Pierrepoint, all the period-piece tastefulness makes for a story more instructive than emotionally tangible.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
06/06/07
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Pierrepoint turns a morbid subject into a fascinating case study of the last official prison executioner in England. The result is both a balanced, carefully researched film and a thoughtful, reflective treatise on capital punishment.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
06/06/07
Rex Reed
Rex Reed
New York Observer
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

An empathetic portrait of a complicated figure, chronicling the mounting toll which his work in the gallows gradually took on his psyche and private life.

Full Review Source: Black Star News | comment Comment
06/05/07
Kam Williams
Kam Williams
Black Star News

Pierrepoint is worth seeing for Shergold’s attention to process and for all the ghoulish details.

Full Review Source: New York Magazine | comment Comment
06/04/07
David Edelstein
David Edelstein
New York Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

At once desperately grim and unnervingly gripping, providing an exacting sense of the detail and procedure that went into death by hanging.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
06/01/07
Mark Olsen
Mark Olsen
Los Angeles Times

Director Adrian Shergold and screenwriters Jeff Pope and Bob Mills take certain liberties with the facts of Pierrepoint's notorious career, but only to offer better insight into his complex personality.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
06/01/07
Ken Fox
Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide

See it if you're a fan of serious, literate drama and virtuoso acting.

Full Review Source: Reel.com | comment Comment
06/01/07
Timothy Knight
Timothy Knight
Reel.com

The filmmakers fall through their own trapdoor, using the hangman's story to fashion a preachy anti-capital punishment message movie that seems at odds with the man himself.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | comment Comment
06/01/07
Glenn Whipp
Glenn Whipp
Los Angeles Daily News

Morbid Goths and reserved Anglophiles can at last find some common ground

Full Review Source: New Times | comment Comment
05/31/07
Luke Y. Thompson
Luke Y. Thompson
New Times

Reaches for complexity but ends up, as you’d expect from a partnership with Masterpiece Theater, rendering Pierrepoint palatable as a decent, principled chap who was just doing his job.

Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | comment Comment
05/31/07
Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor
L.A. Weekly

The movie hits its message a little too emphatically, and its narrative unwinds a little too schematically. But Spall's performance, along with that of Juliet Stevenson as his devoted and sometimes credulous spouse, keeps things grounded.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
05/31/07
Gene Seymour
Gene Seymour
Newsday
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

This recounting of Pierrepoint's rise and fall proves mostly a schematic message movie.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
05/29/07
Nick Schager
Nick Schager
Slant Magazine

Handles capitol punishment in a similar way that "Vera Drake" tackled the abortion issue ... allows Timothy Spall's resplendent dramatic chops to shine.

Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | comment Comment
05/29/07
Edward Douglas
Edward Douglas
ComingSoon.net

Effectively shows how an executioner kills over six hundred people before coming to end of his rope.

Full Review Source: Compuserve | comment Comment
05/24/07
Harvey S. Karten
Harvey S. Karten
Compuserve
 
 
21 - 40 (sorted by date)
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