MOVIE REVIEW: \'Trial By Fire\' serves up drama on death row | Entertainment

Jack O’Connell plays Cameron Todd Willingham in “Trial By Fire.”

Photo: Steve Dietl

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Trial By Fire

(R)

Three out of four stars

Either in full or in part, “Dead Man Walking,” “Monster’s Ball,” “The Green Mile,” “Capote,” “The Life of David Gale” and Clint Eastwood’s “True Crime” are movies which address the subject of capital punishment. It should surprise no one that each film takes a strong stand against it.

That’s also the case for “Trial By Fire,” the latest entry in this genre. Unfortunately, it adds nothing new on artistic or moral grounds. The good news is that it does contain some legal and ethical arguments which could give many on the pro side cause to reconsider their position.

On Dec. 23, 1991, the three young female children of Stacy (Emily Meade) and Cameron Todd Willingham (Jack O’Connell) died in a house fire just south of Dallas in Corsicana, Texas. Stacy wasn’t home at the time, but Todd was and all the evidence collected from the scene indicated he deliberately set the fire. He was found guilty on three counts of first degree murder and given a death penalty sentence, which was carried out in 2004.

A ne’er-do-well and heavy drinker with an aversion to gainful employment, Willingham was further hindered by a public defender who barely put any effort into mounting a decent defense. It also didn’t help that the prosecution relied on questionable forensic findings — and there were later whispers of witness tampering. The state of Texas – and by proxy then Governor Rick Perry – felt there was more than enough evidence against Willingham, and no one could stomach the idea of a triple infanticide case going unpunished.

It is during Willingham’s long incarceration after his trial that he meets Elizabeth Gilbert (Laura Dern), a playwright who was gently pushed by a friend into performing community service by becoming pen pals with a death row inmate. Gilbert draws Willingham’s name, and after an awkward, extended getting-to-know-you phase, she becomes his biggest advocate, spending years trying to get his conviction overturned.

Employing essentially the same back-and-forth flashback format he used to better effect in the far superior battlefield mystery/thriller “Courage Under Fire,” director Edward Zwick — in tandem with screenwriter Geoffrey S. Fletcher – keeps the audience on its toes but gives away far too much too soon. Willingham is on death row before the 30-minute mark and it is there where the narrative temporarily stalls.

Based on “The New Yorker” investigative article of the same name by David Grann, “Trial By Fire” all too often has the complexion and depth of a Lifetime production made slightly more dangerous with the addition of multiple F-bombs.

Always proficient at drawing out superb performances from his casts, Zwick does the same here with even the most minor of supporting players, Dern and especially O’Connell. British-born and a veteran of the stage by his mid-teens, O’Connell spent most of his early career playing young English tough guys and delinquents — an excellent primer for tackling the deceptively complex Willingham.

Following in the footsteps of fellow countrymen Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Hugh Laurie and the recently departed Albert Finney, O’Connell is dead on with his American accent and mannerisms. In fact, his rendering of the negative Southern stereotype is almost too good.

With the requisite mullet, too much body art and far too much misguided insolence, Willingham was in many ways his own worst enemy and did little to alter his appearance or attitude for his day in court. Given that and all of the above stacked circumstances, few jurors would have had a difficult time convicting him.

The filmmakers’ only solid pass at original storytelling comes late in the third act with the arrival of Gerald Hurst (Jeff Perry) — an odd-duck forensics nerd. He re-examined all of the evidence in 2004 and came to radically different conclusions, which went ignored by Governor Perry – who shows up as himself in archival footage during a damning end-credits sequence.

At the very least, “Trial By Fire” should make it obvious to everyone working within the U.S. justice system that death penalty cases need further oversight safeguards to prevent innocent people from being killed for crimes they may not have committed. With advancements in science seemingly coming every day, these numbers of tragic miscarriages of justice should be going down, but more needs to be done.

Eliminating the death penalty altogether could bring the error factor down to zero — and this was indeed the case between 1967 and 1977 when it was made illegal by the Supreme Court. But that was overturned in Georgia in 1976, and in the time since then 30 states have reinstated the practice — and not so surprisingly are mostly in “red” voting states.

While far from perfect as art, “Trial By Fire” more than succeeds as a provocative think piece.