There's an interesting portrait of the psychopath here. Tommy Lee Jones is good as Gary Gilmore, a Utah killer who became a celebrity for failing to appeal his death sentence.
Gary has a fatal case of frustration intolerance. As the movie depicts it, because he is so impatient to reconcile with his girlfriend, Nicole (Rosanne Arquette) , and get the money for a truck that he covets, he senselessly kills for cash two nights in a row.
My main problem with this film is its almost total ignoring of the victims, both married fathers of infants who cooperated with Gary but got fatally shot anyway. One certainly wonders how their survivors viewed this production -- if they could bear to watch it at all.
To its credit, the movie succeeds in creating an in-depth portrait of its protagonist. While depicting Gary as a loveable rogue at times, it also plumbs his victimization of troubled young mother Nicole, whom he supposedly adored.
The execution scene is indeed heart-wrenching, prompting one to question the eye-for-an-eye logic of capital punishment. The movie also forces one to consider the insanity of jailing a man in a cauldron of violence for 12 years and expecting that to cure him. (Gary committed these horrific crimes only four months after his release on parole for bank robbery.)
This movie has some wonderful original songs, written and performed by Waylon Jennings, and gorgeous views of the Wasatch mountains. The setting for this tragedy -- a place of fog-laced church steeples, barns, and sunrises, isn't a locale in which we'd expect this kind of mayhem. And thus, it's a powerful reminder that evil can strike anywhere.
Gary has a fatal case of frustration intolerance. As the movie depicts it, because he is so impatient to reconcile with his girlfriend, Nicole (Rosanne Arquette) , and get the money for a truck that he covets, he senselessly kills for cash two nights in a row.
My main problem with this film is its almost total ignoring of the victims, both married fathers of infants who cooperated with Gary but got fatally shot anyway. One certainly wonders how their survivors viewed this production -- if they could bear to watch it at all.
To its credit, the movie succeeds in creating an in-depth portrait of its protagonist. While depicting Gary as a loveable rogue at times, it also plumbs his victimization of troubled young mother Nicole, whom he supposedly adored.
The execution scene is indeed heart-wrenching, prompting one to question the eye-for-an-eye logic of capital punishment. The movie also forces one to consider the insanity of jailing a man in a cauldron of violence for 12 years and expecting that to cure him. (Gary committed these horrific crimes only four months after his release on parole for bank robbery.)
This movie has some wonderful original songs, written and performed by Waylon Jennings, and gorgeous views of the Wasatch mountains. The setting for this tragedy -- a place of fog-laced church steeples, barns, and sunrises, isn't a locale in which we'd expect this kind of mayhem. And thus, it's a powerful reminder that evil can strike anywhere.