Murder in the First

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Movie
German title Murder in the First
Original title Murder in the First
Country of production USA , France
original language English
Publishing year 1995
length 122 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Marc Rocco
script Dan Gordon
production Marc Frydman
Marc Wolper
music Christopher Young
camera Fred Murphy
cut Russell Livingstone
occupation

Murder in the First (German reference title: Lebenslang in Alcatraz ) is an American feature film by director Marc Rocco from 1995 . The prison film tells the fictional story of a 16-year-old boy who was imprisoned in federal prison on the island of Alcatraz for a little shoplifting and became a murderer there.

action

A chain of unfortunate circumstances turns the theft of five US dollars in a small store with an attached post office into a federal criminal matter and petty criminal Henri Young is thrown into the notorious federal prison of Alcatraz.

In the event of an unsuccessful attempt to escape, Henri is denounced and "rehabilitated" in a dark dungeon for three years. The hated and extremely brutal deputy prison director Glenn is responsible for the terrible " rehabilitation measures", which in fact are nothing more than sadistic torture that has continued for years.

When the mentally and physically destroyed inmate Henri comes out of the "dungeon" after three years, he immediately kills the informer in front of around 200 witnesses in the prison canteen.

In this hopeless case, the still inexperienced lawyer James Stamphill is appointed as a public defender for Henri. The first day of the trial is June 22, 1941. The public prosecutor believes the case has already been won - Henri faces the death penalty. However, Stamphill is committed to his client and shows the murder from a completely new perspective.

Due to the ambition of the lawyer, the defendant only receives a penalty for negligent homicide at the age of three, but has to serve it again in Alcatraz. The prisoner dies some time later, it is impossible to tell whether it was murder or suicide.

background

The film is said to be based on a true story that led to the abolition of solitary confinement in this extreme form in Alcatraz and other federal prisons in the 1940s . It is the third collaboration between Kevin Bacon and Gary Oldman. Both were already in front of the camera at Der Frauenmörder and JFK - Tatort Dallas .

Reviews

"A prison thriller that goes" far beyond comparable Hollywood films of the genre. "

- film service

“Because of some hardships, this film is not for the faint of heart. A little less pathos in direction and music would have done, however. "

- prism-online

“If you compare prison life then and now, the frequent suicides of that time are not only understandable, but sometimes also inevitable. The gaping difference between Playstation, TV, and decent work vs. Wet, pitch-dark single cells and massive physical and psychological abuse only become really clear through such films. What a battered and broken person looks like has seldom been portrayed as well as by Kevin Bacon. "

- Moviepilot .de

Awards

  • British Film Critics Association 1996 BFCA Award for Kevin Bacon
  • 1996 PFS Award from the Political Film Society in the Human Rights category
  • The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ alcatrazhistory.com
  2. ↑ Murder in the First. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ↑ moviepilot.de