There's also strong support from Juliet Stevenson and ... Claire Keelan, who stands out in a small role as, well, a tart.
Comment
05/12/06
Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2007)
78 %
Reviews Counted: 49 Fresh: 38 Rotten:11 Average Rating: 7.1/10
Consensus:
Director Adrian Shergold doesn't shy away from the darker elements of the movie's subject, and Timothy Spall is mesmerizing as the title character.
Rated: 15
Runtime: 90 mins
Theatrical Release: 07-04-2006
Synopsis: Timothy Spall (Professor Pettigrew from the Harry Potter movies) gives a magnificently multilayered performance as the protagonist in PIERREPOINT: THE LAST HANGMAN. Spall plays Albert Pierrepoint, a grocery deliveryman who decides to apply for his father's old job--a hangman for the... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson, Eddie Marsan, James Corden, Christopher Fulford
Director: Adrian Shergold
Screenwriter: Bob Mills, Jeff Pope
Producer: Christine Langan
Composer: Martin Phipps
Screenwriter: Bob Mills, Jeff Pope
Producer: Christine Langan
Composer: Martin Phipps
Reviews
In the wrong hands this could have been capital punishment, but as a low key drama about one man's unique approach to life and other people's deaths, it's actually just, er, capital.
05/06/06
Top Critic
The actors' understated performances, coupled with an underwritten screenplay, ultimately leave the audience dangling.
05/06/06
Top Critic
What the film does have, however, is the courage of its dark convictions; it’s a bleak subject and, commendably, the director doesn’t shy away from it.
05/06/06
Top Critic
The key to the film is in the performances by Spall and Stevenson -- and by Marsan. The utter averageness of the characters, their lack of insight, their normality, contrasts with the subject matter in an unsettling way.
11/02/07
Top Critic
A suitably sombre treatment of a sombre story, Pierrepoint is nevertheless a riveting drama, sketching out not only the salient facts of Albert Pierrepoint's life but the turmoil in which that life caused in his soul
10/09/07
Albert Pierrepoint single-handedly killed over 450 people in his career, dispatching most of them with an icy precision in less than 30 seconds.
09/07/07
Based on their press materials, they think they have made a film damning capital punishment and exploring Britain's most famous executioner. In fact, they haven't. But they have made a film of artistic beauty and endless fascination.
07/10/07
The movie grows more compelling in the latter half as British public opinion turns against capital punishment and Pierrepoint begins to have his own doubts.
06/21/07
There is a great deal of food for thought in a film that personalizes the effects of the death penalty on both the executed and the executioner.
06/19/07
A genuine and skillful account of one of Britain's most morally ambiguous working-class characters.
06/18/07
...a powerful pairing of work by two terrific actors [Spall and Stevenson].
06/16/07
The very title of this movie seems to message its doom. What could possibly be dramatic enough about Britain's last hangman to carry our interest over a 90-minute film? A whole lot, it turns out.
06/15/07
A completely engaging film. It's all about performance, and Timothy Spall is riveting as the earnest hangman. If you're desperate for a movie that has nothing to do with sequels or product placement, look no further.
06/15/07
[The film's] grittiness instantly adds to the historically and socio-economically convincing picture of working-class Yorkshire in the last century.
06/15/07
Very much a bookend to Vera Drake in its mixture of post war British reserve and ugly reality. [Actor] Spall makes it work, creating a little man with big and terrible secrets.
06/15/07
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• Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman at Rotten Tomatoes
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• Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman at AskMen
• Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman at IGN
• Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman at AskMen
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