Television movies from my youth fell into two categories. You had the classics (”Roots,” “The Day After”) and then you had everything else (”You Name the Fatal Illness” flicks and cheesy melodramas).
“The Executioner’s Song” clearly fell into the former slot. Just re-watched the film courtesy of a new director’s cut DVD release (Aug. 5).
Tommy Lee Jones stars as Gary Gilmore, a charismatic killer whose death sentence brought capital punishment back into the headlines in the 1970s. Rosanna Arquette, who I spoke with this week for an upcoming feature, plays his love interest.
it’s a terrific film that hasn’t aged a whit. Jones is flat-out brilliant, and it’s no shock he earned an Emmy for his portrayal. Arquette is nearly as good as the oh, so forgiving girl who couldn’t stop loving a killer.
“Song” doesn’t take hard sides on the death penalty debate. It shows Gilmore’s flickering humanity as well as the full extent of his depraved acts.
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I'm an award-winning journalist and film critic with more than a decade of experience in newspapers, magazines and the Web. I'm a member of both the Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association and the Denver Film Critics Society.
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