"Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead"

By David Hudson on 02/27/2009

[Updated through 2/28]

"Robert Blecker is an New York Law School professor and outspoken proponent of the death penalty," writes Nick Schager in Slant, "and the 'me' referred to by 'Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead' is Daryl Holton, who in 1997 cold-bloodedly murdered his four children with an AK-47 and with whom Blecker formed an uneasy relationship in the years leading up to Holton's 2007 execution. Only serviceably shot on cruddy DV but smartly refusing to embrace either side of the capital punishment issue, Ted Schillinger's documentary focuses squarely on Blecker, whose support for the death penalty comes from a fundamental belief that, in extreme, limited circumstances, 'proportionate punishment' for a heinous crime is a lethal one."

"Blecker is like a walking David Foster Wallace character, grappling with his own thinking and then grappling some more," writes Vadim Rizov in the Voice (and he talks with him, too, at the SpoutBlog). "By execution night, a torn Blecker is floating outside the prison, accepted neither by the pro- or anti-death penalty factions, literally alone in the darkness. Watching someone have their moral certainty evaporate is a powerful thing--and more than adequate compensation for the film's technical flaws."

"Holton - a well-spoken man with a razor-sharp mind - argued that he knew what he was doing, and that he needed to die. Blecker took a liking to Holton immediately, even though the killer presented a paradox. If you give a guilty man the death he wants, is that really the punishment he deserves?" Noel Murray at the AV Club: "The movie's drama derives from the extended conversations in which Blecker attempts to get Holton to abandon his self-righteousness and feel some real, soul-wracking guilt for what he did. The irony is that in his own way, Blecker is as confined by his moral logic as Holton, and watching Blecker grapple with that realization is tense and exciting - like an action movie for people who miss their high-school debate teams."

Mark Holcomb in Time Out New York: "Blecker's climactic nighttime encounter with garden-variety execution advocates offers a resolution-by-proxy of the duo's bizarre waltz, as well as a powerful home truth: Wanting someone to die is bloodlust no matter what the justification, whether it happens by your hands or the state's."

But in the New York Times, Nathan Lee finds that Schillinger "remains neutral to a fault. His documentary, while compelling, can also be frustrating."

At the Cinema Village in New York.

Update, 2/28: Jeremy W Peters tells the story of the film's making in the NYT.

[Photo: "Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead," Atlas Media, 2008]

Tags: Daryl Holton, Robert Blecker, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead, Ted Schillinger