Tag Archives: Martin Sheen

October True Crime: Out of the Darkness (dir by Jud Taylor)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1985 film, Out of the Darkness, takes place in New York City.

It begins in 1977 and it ends in 1978.  As the opening title card informs us, it’s a film about a city that was living in fear of the gunman known as the Son of Sam.  One of the first images that we see is an a handgun being fired at two people who are making out inside of a car.  We then cut to a police station where a homicide detective (played by Sam McMurray) reads aloud the letter that the Son of Sam sent to Jimmy Breslin.

That said, David Berkowitz, the killer who claimed that he was told to murder by a dog before later changing his story and claiming that he was a part of a Satanic conspiracy, spends most of the film in the shadows.  His name isn’t even mentioned until the film’s final third.  Instead, the majority of the film focuses on Ed Zigo (Martin Sheen), a New York City detective who tries to balance his desire to catch the Son of Sam with taking care of his wife (Jennifer Salt), who is due to have surgery for her heart condition.  Ed Zigo is dedicated and intelligent New York cop, the type who has no problem walking into a Mafia-controlled bar and asking the owner if his son has any connections to the family business.  He’s also a dedicated family man who freaks out when his daughter goes out on a date.  When his wife dies after surgery, Ed Zigo deals with his grief by throwing himself into his work but, as he tells his priest (Hector Elizondo), he no longer has his old confidence.  He fears that he’s going to make a mistake that’s either going to put his partner (Matt Clark) in harm’s way or allow the Son of Sam to continue to killing.

And really, it’s not a problem that the film focuses less on the killer and more on the people trying to track him down.  Martin Sheen gives a strong and sincere performance as the dedicated Ed Zigo, perfectly capturing not only his dedication but also his fear and his weariness.  (In many ways, his performance here feels like a forerunner to his performance in The Departed.)  The film captures the feel of living in a city where no one trusts anyone and it is also a good example of a “New Yorkers will be rude to anyone” film.  Even with a killer running around, no one wants to listen to a word the police have to say.  When David Berkowitz does show up, he’s played by an actor named Robert Trebor who gives an appropriately creepy performance.

Interestingly enough, Joe Spinell also appears in Out of the Darkness, playing the small but important role of an early Son of Sam suspect.  Though he only appears in two scenes, Spinell makes a memorably seedy impression.  Of course, today, Spinell is remembered for playing a character based on the Son of Sam in the infamous 1980 grindhouse shocker, Maniac.

(Trivia fans will also want to note that Charlie Sheen has a wordless cameo as a man who shuts his apartment door in the face of Martin Sheen and Matt Clark when they attempt to ask him if he witnessed the latest murder.  “Nice guy,” Martin says, in response.)

If you’re looking for a film in which Berkowitz is cursed out by a dog, Summer of Sam is probably the one to go for.  However, if you’re looking for a more low-key but realistic portrayal of Berkowitz’s reign of terror, Out of the Darkness is a good one to go with.

Late Night Retro Television Reviews: Gun 1.2 “Ricochet”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Gun, an anthology series that ran on ABC for six week in 1997.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, on Gun, Martin Sheen plays a cop who might be investigating the final murder of his career!

Episode 1.2 “Ricochet”

(Dir by Peter Horton, originally aired on April 19th, 1997)

The second episode of Gun opens with the death of a Japanese businessman.  He’s found shot on a cliffside that overlooks the ocean.  The gun that shot him is discovered and taken by a homeless man named Lazy Eye Pete (Bud Cort).  Pete is a cheerfully eccentric type, one who sings for money and who is dedicated to taking care of his pet dog, Chester.  But, as soon as Pete gets that gun, his personality starts to change and he even ends up pulling the gun on a group of teenagers who were attempting to mug him.  In the end, Pete sells the gun to a friend of his.

Also searching for that gun is Detective Van Guinness (Martin Sheen).  Guinness, who suffers from ulcers and who takes his job very personally, has promised his girlfriend (Tess Harper) that he will retire from the force.  However, he doesn’t want to go out on a simple or an unsolved case.  Fortunately, for Guinness, he’s assigned the complicated case of the dead businessman.  Unfortunately, for him, his girlfriend is not at all amused by his refusal to retire.

Van’s partner (Kirk Baltz) thinks that the businessman was killed during a robbery but Guinness disagrees.  Guinness thinks that the businessman was murdered by either his wife (Nancy Travis) or his amoral attorney (Christopher McDonald).  The wife and the attorney are sleeping together and they’ve also come up with a plan to somehow fix the California state lottery.  (I couldn’t really follow what their plan was but then again, I’ve also never played the lottery.)  The attorney thinks that the wife is the murderer.  The wife thinks that the attorney is the murderer.  The truth is a bit more complicated but, in order to full understand what happened, Van Guinness is going to have to find that gun.

Though the plot was a bit too complicated for its own good (Seriously, what was going on with the whole lottery subplot?), the second episode was a definite improvement over the first episode, with director Peter Horton keeping the action moving at a steady pace and establishing the consistent tone that the previous episode lacked.  Ricochet played out like a true ensemble piece, splitting its attention between Martin Sheen, Bud Cort, Nancy Travis, and Christopher McDonald.  All four of the actors did a good job bringing their characters to life.  I especially liked Christopher McDonald’s amoral attorney.  Nobody plays a crooked attorney with quite the style and wit of Christopher McDonald!

Next week: Rosanna Arquette and James Gandolfini appear in an episode directed by the show’s co-creator, James Steven Sadwith.

 

Scenes That I Love: Harrison Ford Briefs Martin Sheen In Apocalypse Now

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy birthday, Harrison Ford!

Today’s scene that I love features Harrison Ford in one of his more unexpected roles.  In Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, he played one of the three men who ordered Martin Sheen to go upriver and assassinate Marlon Brando.  It’s a small role, especially when one considers that Ford had appeared as Han Solo just two years before.  Given the lengthy shooting of Apocalypse Now, there’s some debate as to whether Ford was actually cast in the role before he was selected for Star Wars.  Giving credence to that theory is that Ford played a similar role for director Francis Ford Coppola in The Conversation.  However, it’s hard not to notice that Ford plays Col. G. Lucas, which would suggest that his casting was a bit of an inside joke.  Speaking of inside jokes, G.D. Spradlin plays General R. Corman, no doubt named for the man who gave Coppola his start in the business.

(Interesting enough, both Spradlin and Corman played U.S. Senators in The Godfather Part II.)

In this scene, Ford shows off the nerdy intensity that was actually kind of his acting trademark before Star Wars changed his screen persona.  This scene, along with his work in The Conversation, serves as a reminder that Harrison Ford is a pretty good character actor along with being one of the last great movie stars.

Horror on TV: Circle of Fear 1.15 “Dark Vengeance”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In today’s episode of Circle of Fear, Martin Sheen plays a construction worker who finds a box at a site.  He brings it home to show his wife, Kim Darby.  When they open the box, they discover only a mirror and a toy horse.  Hey, that doesn’t seem too bad, right?  But then Darby starts to have nightmares that indicate that the horse might be cursed!

This episode aired on January 12th, 1973.  It’s always a little bit jarring to see Martin Sheen playing a regular guy, back before The West Wing brought out his pompous side.  Young Martin Sheen was quite a good actor.  His resemblance to Emilio Estevez is uncanny.  I wonder if they’re related.

(That’s a joke, everyone.  Calm down.)

Enjoy!

Horror Film Review: The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (dir by Nicolas Gessner)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1976, The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane tells the story of Ryann Jacobs (played by Jodie Foster, who was thirteen years old when she made this film).

Rynn lives in a small New England town, in a house that her father has leased for three years.  It’s been a while since anyone has seen Rynn’s father.  Rynn always tells everyone that he’s either out of town or that he’s busy in his study and can’t be disturbed.  When the friendly local policeman (Mort Schuman) expresses some doubt about Rynn’s claim that her father is working, Rynn says that her father is a drug addict, like all of the great poets.

Rynn’s main problem is with the Halletts.  Cora Hallett (Alexis Smith) owns the house in which Rynn is living.  Cora drops by regularly, haughtily demanding to see Rynn’s father.  Her creepy son, Frank (Martin Sheen), also makes a habit of visiting.  He’s not interested in Cora’s father.  Instead, he’s interested in Cora.  Everyone in the town knows that Frank is a perv but no one is willing to do anything about it.  He’s protected by his mother’s money.

One day, when Cora drops by, she insists on going into the basement.  She says she has something down there that she needs to retrieve.  Rynn tells her not to go down there but Cora refuses to listen, which turns out to be a huge mistake.  Cora screams at what she sees down there and then falls to her death.  With the help of her only friend, Mario (Scott Jacoby) an aspiring magician who walks with a limp, Rynn covers up the murder.

Mario turns out to be a very good friend, indeed.  Not only does he tell people that he’s seen Rynn’s father but he even stands up to Frank when he shows up at the house, searching for his mother.  However, as it soon becomes clear, Frank isn’t one to give up so easily….

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane is an interesting hybrid of a film.  It definitely does have elements of horror.  The running theme throughout the film is that Rynn might kill people but it’s all the adults in her life who are truly monstrous.  Frank is truly a monster and Martin Sheen gives a remarkably intense and creepy performance in the role.  Frank is the type who will say that worst things imaginable and then smirk afterward, confident that he’ll never have to face any sort of justice for his crimes.

At the same time, the film is also a coming-of-age-story and a teen romance.  Rynn and Mario are two outsiders who find each other.  You like both of them and you want things to work out for them, even though you spend almost the entire film worried that Rynn might end up poisoning Mario.  Foster and Jacoby share some genuinely sweet scenes.  Things would be just fine, the film seems to be saying, if all of these stupid adults would just mind their own business.

The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane is an effectively creepy and sometimes even sweet little film about a girl who occasionally has to kill people.  Keep an eye out for it!

Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 (1987, directed by Jeremy Kagan)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1969 and, in an Illinois courtroom, 8 political radicals stand accused of conspiring to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention.  The prosecution is putting the entire anti-war movement on trial while the defendants are determined to disrupt the system, even if it means being convicted.  The eight defendants come from all different sides of the anti-war movement.  Jerry Rubin (Barry Miller) and Abbie Hoffman (Michael Lembeck) represent the intentionally absurd Yippies.  Tom Hayden (Brian Benben) and Rennie Davis (Robert Carradine) are associated with the Students for a Democratic Society.  Bobby Seale (Carl Lumbly) is one of the founders of the Black Panthers while David Dellinger (Peter Boyle) is a longtime peace activist.  John Friones (David Kagan) and Lee Weiner (Robert Fieldsteel) represent the common activists, the people who traveled to Chicago to protest despite not being a leader of any of the various organizations.  Prosecuting  the Chicago 8 are Richard Schulz (David Clennon) and Tom Foran (Harris Yulin).  Defending the 8 are two radical lawyers, Leonard Wienglass (Elliott Gould) and William Kunstler (Robert Loggia).  Presiding over the trial is the fearsome and clearly biased Judge Julius Hoffman (David Opatoshu).

Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 is a dramatization of the same story that inspired Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 but, of the two films, it’s Jeremy Kagan’s The Trial of the Chicago 8 that provides a more valuable history lesson.  By setting all of the action in the courtroom and recreating only what was said during the trial, director Jeremy Kagan and his cast avoid the contrived drama that marred so much of Sorkin’s film.  Kagan trusts that the true story is interesting enough to stand on its own.  Kagan includes documentary footage from the convention protest itself and also interviews with the people who were actually there.  While Kagan may not have had the budget that Sorkin did, his film has the authenticity that Sorkin’s lacked.  Kagan also has the better cast, with Michael Lembeck and Barry Miller both making Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin into something more than the mere caricatures that they are often portrayed as being.

The Trial of the Chicago 8 was a film that Jeremy Kagan spent a decade trying to make.  When he first tried to sell the idea behind the film to CBS in 1976, Kagan had Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau, George C. Scott, and Dustin Hoffman all willing to work for scale and take part in the production.  CBS still passed on the project, saying that no one was interested in reliving the 60s.  It wasn’t until 1987 that Jeremy Kagan was finally able to revive the film, this time with HBO.  It actually worked out for the best because, with HBO, there was no need to try to come up with a “clean” version for the language that was used in the courtroom or in the interviews with the actual participants.  The defendants could be themselves.

Though it has been overshadowed by Sorkin’s subsequent film, The Trial of the Chicago 8 is the definitive film about what happened in the aftermath of the the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Judas and the Black Messiah (dir by Shaka King)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Judas and the Black Messiah is currently an Oscar nominee for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Song, and Best Supporting Actor. (In a move that left quite a few people feeling confused, the Academy nominated both of the film’s leads — LaKeith Stanfield and Daniel Kaluuya — in the supporting category.) In detailing how, in 1969, Black Panther leader Fred Hampton (played by Kaluuya) was assassinated by the FBI and the Chicago police, it tells a true story that should leave any viewer, regardless of political orientation, shaken.

What’s interesting is that, in several Oscar categories, Judas and the Black Messiah will be competing with another fact-based film about 60s activists, Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7. In fact, Hampton briefly appears as a character in The Trial of the Chicago 7 and a key scene involves lawyer William Kunstler and Black Panther Bobby Seale discussing Hampton’s murder. Of course, in Sorkin’s film, the Black Panthers don’t get to say much. They appear in the background of the courtroom a few times and it’s hard not to feel that Sorkin is largely using them as props, as a way to let us know that he and the Chicago 7 are all on “the right side of history.” After the scene in which he learns that Hampton’s been murdered, Bobby Seale basically disappears from the film and the rest of The Trial of the Chicago 7 focuses on seven rich white guys debating whether or not it’s better to be serious while protesting or to try to have fun. I point this out not merely to criticize The Trial of the Chicago 7 but also to illustrate that, though they deal with the same time period and the same themes, Judas and the Black Messiah and The Trial of the Chicago 7 are as different as night and day. Judas and the Black Messiah is an angry and unapologetically political film, one that reveals just how anodyne The Trial of the Chicago 7 actually is. If The Trial of the Chicago 7 is carefully calculated to be a crowd pleaser, Judas and the Black Messiah is about leaving the audience outraged. If The Trial of Chicago 7 is about ultimately assuring the audience that the system works even if it is occasionally corrupted, Judas and the Black Messiah is a call to burn the entire system down.

The film opens with Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield) getting arrested for both auto theft and impersonation of a federal officer in Chicago. He’s approached by FBI agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons). Mitchell has an offer for Bill. Mitchell is willing to have the charges dropped if Bill will agree to work undercover for the FBI. Bill accepts Roy’s offer and is assigned to infiltrate the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. The chapter is currently led by Fred Hampton, a charismatic revolutionary who has been going around to all of the other activist groups and gangs in Chicago and building a multi-racial coalition, one dedicated to social justice and economic equality. Under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen, made up to look as grotesque as possible), the FBI is looking to destroy the Black Panthers from within.

Bill agrees to work for the FBI and infiltrate the Black Panther Party. Soon, he not only wins Hampton’s trust but he also works his way up the ranks until he’s promoted to being head of security. He also grows close to Hampton and starts to respond to Hampton’s message of self-determination. However, Mitchell insists that Bill continue to inform on the Panthers, arguing that the Panthers will kill Bill if they ever discover that he’s working with the FBI and also that Hampton himself is a dangerous radical. (Mitchell brags about how he worked to solve the murder of three civil right workers in Mississippi before then comparing Hampton and the Panthers to the KKK.) With Hampton gathering more followers and Hoover demanding that something be done to “neutralize” him, Bill is ordered to betray the man that many have come to view as being the black messiah.

Daniel Kaluuya gives a mesmerizing performance as Fred Hampton. It’s one thing to play a character who everyone insists is a charismatic leader but it’s another thing to give a performance that convinces the audience that the character is a charismatic leader before anyone else has even said a word about him. Kaluuya strides through the film, playing Hampton as a man who knows that he’s destined to change the world. The scenes where he meets with gang leaders and other activist leaders and recruits them into his Rainbow Coalition could have played like simple agitprop (just imagine if Aaron Sorkin had written or directed them!) but Kaluuya is so convincing that you never have any doubt that people actually would abandon their prejudices and their rivalries to follow him. Unlike the quippy activists at the heart of The Trial of the Chicago 7, Kaluuya-as-Hampton actually discusses what his ideology means and also why the system cannot be depended upon to sort itself out. Kaluuya’s Hamtpon challenges not only the film’s villains but also the complacency of the viewers, something that definitely cannot be said of the characters in Aaron Sorkin’s far more comforting film.

LaKeith Stanfield has a difficult role because Bill is a character who most viewers are going to feel ambiguous about but he does a good job of capturing both Bill’s growing consciousness and his growing desperation as he comes to realize that there’s no way to escape the situation in which he’s found himself. Finally, Jesse Plemons is well-cast as Roy Mitchell, who is alternatively threatening and consoling to Bill. A lesser actor would have played Mitchell as just being a straight-up villain but Plemons plays him as someone who truly does believe that he’s one of the good guys, which makes Mitchell’s actions all the more disturbing.

Judas and the Black Messiah is a powerful and angry film. One need not even agree with every bit of Hampton’s ideology to be outraged by the federal government’s efforts to silence his voice and end his life. Judas and the Black Messiah is not expected to win much on Sunday night and, indeed, by nominated both Kaluuya and Stanfield in the same category, the Academy has created a situation in which the two could potentially split the vote and prevent either one from winning. Still, regardless of what it does or doesn’t win this weekend, Judas and the Black Messiah a film that will probably continue to resonate after many of the other nominees have been forgotten.

Rage (1972, directed by George C. Scott)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Wyoming sheep rancher Dan Logan (George C. Scott) and his teenage son, Chris (Nicolas Beauvy), spend a night camping out on their land.  While Dan stays in the tent, Chris decides to sleep outside, underneath the stars.  The next morning, Dan leaves the tent to discover that all of his sheep are dead and that Chris is having violent convulsions.  Dan rushes his son to the local hospital, where he hopes that the family’s longtime physician, Dr. Caldwell (Richard Basehart), can save his son’s life.

However, at the hospital, Dan is separated from his son.  Two doctors that he’s never met before — Dr. Spencer (Barnard Hughes) and Major Holliford (Martin Sheen) — take over his case.  They tell him that Chris was probably just exposed to an insecticide and that both Dan and his son are going to have to stay at the hospital for a few days.  Dan is confined to his room and not allowed to see his son.

What Dan doesn’t know is that both he and his son have been unwittingly exposed to a secret army nerve gas.  Though the experiment was only meant to be performed on the animals that were grazing on Dan’s land, Dan and Chris were accidentally sprayed.  When Dan discovers the truth about what’s been done to him and his son, he sets out to try to get revenge with what little time he has left.

Fresh from refusing an Oscar for Patton, George C. Scott made his feature film directorial debut with Rage.  (He had previously directed The Andersonville Trial for television.)  As a director, Scott sometimes struggles.  Rage is so relentlessly grim and serious that even the most experienced director would have had a difficult time making it compelling.  The scenes in the hospital are effective claustrophobic but they’re also often dramatically inert.  The only humor in the film comes from Scott’s overuse of slow motion.  When even simple scenes, like throwing coffee on a campfire, are shown in slow motion, it goes from being ominous to unintentionally humorous.

As a director, Scott did make a very wise decision by casting himself in the lead role.  No one was better at portraying pure, incandescent anger than George C. Scott and the film picks up once Dan discovers what’s been done to himself and his son.  Once Dan sets off to get revenge, Rage becomes an entirely different film, one that is about both a father’s anger and the cold calculation of a government that views him as just as a subject to be tested upon.  The final scene is especially effective and suggests that Scott could have become an interesting director if he had stuck with it.

Scott would direct one more film, The Savage Is Loose, before devoting the rest of his distinguished career to performing.

Mongo’s Back In Town (1971, directed by Marvin J. Chomsky)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

During the Christmas season, Mongo (Joe Don Baker) returns home.  However, Mongo hasn’t just come back for the holidays.  Mongo is professional killer, one of the best in the business.  His older brother, mob boss Mike Nash (Charles Cioffi), has a job for him.  He wants Mongo to wipe out a rival gangster.  Mongo’s willing to do it but he expects to be properly compensated for his trouble.  Family is family but Mongo’s a professional and a professional has to get paid.  Lt. Pete Tolsted (Telly Savalas) and his partner, Gordon (Martin Sheen), are the two cops who know that Mongo is bad news and who are determined to discover why Mongo is back in town.  Meanwhile, Mongo is falling in love with the naive Vicki (a very young Sally Field), a young woman who has fled West Virginia and is looking to restart her life in the big city.

This made-for-TV movie may not contain any huge surprises but it’s worth tracking down just for the cast.  Joe Don Baker, Telly Savalas, Martin Sheen, and Sally Field, all in the same movie and all at the top of their considerable game?  That’s more than worth the effort.  Joe Don Baker, in particular, is good.  Unfortunately, Baker doesn’t always get the respect that he deserves an actor.  It’s true that he’s appeared in his share of bad films and his range is limited.  But whenever he was cast in the right role — like in this movie or the first Walking Tall — he was a force of nature.  What’s most interesting about Mongo is that he doesn’t really like his work and he resents that it’s something that he’s been trapped into doing but, at the same time, he’s so good at it that it’s hard not to wonder what other career he could have possibly found as much success in.

Mongo’s Back In Town was released theatrically overseas under the title Steel Wreath.  (Maybe someone realized that Mongo’s Back In Town makes the movie sound like a screwball comedy.)  It can be viewed, under its original title, on YouTube.

 

In The Custody of Strangers (1982, directed by Robert Greenwald)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In this television film, Emilio Estevez plays the world’s worst son but his behavior makes sense because he also has the world’s worst father (played by Estevez’s real-life father, Martin Sheen).

When teenager Danny Caldwell (Estevez) gets arrested for crashing into a police car while driving drunk, his mother, Sandy (Jane Alexander), wants to bail him out and bring him home.  However, Frank Caldwell (Sheen) is an old-fashioned disciplinarian and he decides that his son needs to spend a night in jail in order to teach him a lesson.  Even though, as a juvenile, Danny is given a private cell, he still snaps when the older inmate in the cell next door starts coming onto him.  After smashing the man’s head against the cell bars, Danny picks up a battery charge and is sucked into the system.

While Frank and Sandy struggle to get Danny released from jail, Danny falls deeper and deeper into despair and anger.  It’s an overcrowded, busy jail and Danny is often left in isolation for both his safety and the safety of the other prisoners.  Even though the warden (Kenneth McMillan) is sympathetic to Danny and can tell that he’s not really a hardened criminal, there’s only so much that he can do for him.  Meanwhile, on the outside world, Frank stubbornly refuses to admit that he made a mistake by leaving Danny in jail overnight.  When a job opportunity presents itself in another state, the unemployed Frank misses some of Danny’s hearings so that he can interview for it, leaving Danny feeling abandoned all over again.

For obvious reasons, the casting of Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez as father and son works very well in this film.  Not only is there the obvious family resemblance but both Sheen and Estevez project the same attitude of anger and resentment towards the world.  If Danny has a chip on his shoulder, it’s because he inherited from his father.  In The Custody of Strangers does a good job of showing how being imprisoned can often turn someone who made a mistake into a hardened criminal but, even though it’s mostly critical of the criminal justice system, it doesn’t let Frank off the hook either.  Frank may say that he was just trying to discipline his son but the film makes clear that what he actually wanted was for jail to do his job as a parent.  The results are disastrous and the film ends on a note of ambiguity.  After what Danny has been through, it’s clear that he’ll never be the same person again.

Sheen, Alexander, and Estevez all give good performances in In The Custody of Strangers.  The only ray of hope that the film offers is the kindly warden and he’s also the film’s biggest flaw because it’s hard to believe that, with everything else going on in the jail, he would have had time to take such a benevolent interest in just one inmate.  In real life, Danny Caldwell would have been even more lost than in this movie.