An average movie

To be honest, it has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. In fact, I even saw it the movie theater when it was released. Well, even though this movie was critically heralded at the time, I have to admit that I actually had some mixed feelings about the damned thing.  I mean, it was a very well made movie, with some really impressive performances by Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon (she even won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role) and the material was really strong but, somehow, it didn’t completely work for me. Basically, I had a really hard time with the angle they choose to approach this story. Indeed, even though it made sense since Helen Prejean was nun, they had to put some focus on the fact that Poncelet should be able to find redemption through God. Sure, he also admits his crimes and apologized to the victim’s family but there was always this religious aspect coming up throughout the whole thing and, as a  result, the impact of this movie was not as a great as it could have been, at least, as far as I’m concerned. To conclude, even though I didn’t completely connect with this movie, it remains a strong drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.