Most often, well-made films dealing with death-row inmates focus on the murderers themselves and their hopes and fears, and doesn’t deal with their families, and their hopes and fears. Dead Man Walking, The Green Mile and True Crime are testament to that.
Then along comes HBO‘s Shot in the Heart (debuting Sat., Oct. 13 at 9 p.m.).
The true-life film, directed by Agnieszka Holland (Europa, Europa), stars Giovanni Ribisi (Saving Private Ryan) as Mikal Gilmore, the brother of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore (played by Elias Koteas of The Thin Red Line fame), and, without question, the focus is on Mikal not his doomed brother. It’s a haunting perspective, nonetheless. Click here to watch a rather indicative–and disturbing–clip from the film.
As the story unfolds, flashbacks reveal the troubled childhood of both Mikal and Gary, living with an abusive father who tended to direct his anger mostly at Gary. Many years later, Gary ends up projecting his suffering on two Utah men, gunning them down in cold blood. Gary’s eventually caught and sentenced to death.
Shot in the Heart examines Mikal’s bitter struggle to save his brother’s life–and the almost perverse obstacles he must overcome to do so. Among these obstacles is the political element that one would expect, but Mikal soon learns that he’s up against a wealth of enemies: the press (particularly one sensationalist reporter played by Eric Bogosian), prison officials, and indeed Gary himself, who initially wants to die.
What makes Shot in the Heart particularly fascinating is director Holland‘s depiction of Mikal’s mental aberrations throughout the film. Mikal’s our hero–that we know–but Mikal’s quite unsure about many things, wavering so bad that at times he semi-hallucinates out of anxiety. (At one point, he’s shaken by images of a white horse galloping about the prison grounds.)
Mikal’s not exactly unsure whether or not he should attempt to save Gary’s life: he’s unsure whether or not he even loves his brother, who is an apparent monstrosity of humanity.
However, at the eleventh hour–almost literally–Mikal finally faces some deep realizations about Gary.
Ribisi, one of our finest actors, delivers a passionate, painful performance, and Koteas‘ emotional bombardment toward the end is certainly worthy of praise. Koteas convincingly transforms from cruel to compassionate.
But the direction and acting aren’t the only aspects that make Shot in the Heart distinctive. The film’s usage of music, particularly country tunes by Johnny Cash and folk songs by the likes of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, further set the tone of this story. Questioning. Confused. Earthy.
In Mikal Gilmore’s book of the same title, he writes: “In that last week, when we began to find each other, we both recognized all the love we had let go to waste… that we were both now about to lose, within hours, for eternity.”
The journey to get to that point makes Shot in the Heart worth two hours of viewing.
(To explore our Shot in the Heart photo gallery, click here.)
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