Genre:
Culture & Society
Release Date: 01/01/2001
Sound: DDS2.0
Run Time:
Distributor/Studio: MGM
Not many filmmakers can claim to have freed a convicted murderer from jail, but
Errol Morris accomplished that feat with his stunning
documentary about
Randall Dale Adams.
Morris, whose brilliant previous features
Vernon, Florida and
Gates of Heaven had focused on less substantial subjects, learned of
Adams' plight when the director was in Texas in preparation for a film about a psychiatrist who testified in murder trials. In November 1976, after his car broke down on a road outside Dallas,
Adams had accepted a ride from a stranger,
David Harris.
Harris was driving a stolen car, and when Dallas police officer
Robert Wood pulled the two men over to check on the vehicle,
Harris shot and killed
Wood. A jury believed that
Adams was the killer, thanks to the perjured testimony of
Harris and the misleading accounts of two witnesses. A story about
Adams on
60 Minutes helped to bring public attention to the case, but it was
Morris' film, which contained extensive interview material with both
Adams and
Harris as well as stylized reenactments of the crime, that clinched the case for
Adams' innocence. He was set free on March 15, 1988. Although
Morris' film made many critics' top ten lists, it was unaccountably not nominated for an Academy award, raising doubts about the credibility of the Motion Picture Academy's nominating process in this category.
~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Cart 0 items
