Pierrepoint

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.

At once desperately grim and unnervingly gripping, providing an exacting sense of the detail and procedure that went into death by hanging.

This is a riveting story about a man who for years moonlighted as an anonymous hangman while holding a day job as a wholesale grocery delivery man.

This 2005 feature has a drab "Masterpiece Theatre" feel, though Pierrepoint is a fascinating study in ethics: he takes pride in his work, wants his victims to die swiftly and painlessly, and considers hanging an absolution.

Pierrepoint is worth seeing for Shergold's attention to process and for all the ghoulish details.

A peculiar little film -- grim and disturbing yet perversely riveting.

Pierrepoint is handsomely crafted and well-acted, but its sense of scale is as constricted as a noose.