26.2 to Life

The director lets us take an intimate look at the San Quentin 1000 Mile Club and some of these prisoners’ stories while they run 26.2-mile marathons around the dirt and gravel-filled prison yard.

The film doesn’t deny that justice must be served, and those who commit crimes must pay. Its question is: How it is paid fairly to the satisfaction of victims and their families and to the benefit of society? The answers are down the road, many miles ahead.

Yoo was granted exceptional access to San Quentin, and when she depicts the mundane qualities of life there — inmates working odd jobs, writing letters, passing the time alone in their cells — the movie gains some of the penetrating clarity of one of Frederick Wiseman’s films.