The book Dead Man Walking written by Sister Helen Prejean is her true account about the beginning of her pursuit to get rid of the death penalty.She is still working towards this goal, to keep up on her efforts visit her site here. The book follows Prejean as she is spiritual adviser for two different men sentenced to die by the electric chair, Patrick Sonnier and Robert Willie. Sonnier was charged with the kidnapping and murder of two teenagers along side his brother who received life in prison. Willie was charged with the rape and murder of a teenage girl with an accomplice.
The film adaption of these events combine these two men into one, Matthew Poncelet. Poncelet is charged with the murders of a teenage couple and rape of the girl sentenced to die by lethal injection. Many aspects of both Willie and Sonnier are thrown together to make Poncelet from the crimes themselves, to the victims families, to the convict's character and comments in certain situations.
When the movie began I assumed Poncelet represented Sonnier and another man would be along later to represent Willie but as the story began to unfold I noticed the combination of the two men down to one. This large change didn't bother me however; I actually found it kind of fun being able to sit and watch the movie while being able to pick out which traits of Poncelet's story belonged to which real man. Plus I acknowledged that to have the men's stories separately would have made the film much longer and seem a little repetitive to viewers. In my opinion the adaptions and changes they made for the film worked fine and kept the important points from the real life stories. I have no problem having read the book and then watched the film with liking both versions. I think it is an excellent adaptation.
Here is the trailer for the film:
Enjoy!
(I take no credit for the picture or video featured in this post.)
