Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris investigates the case of a man who became an authority on capital punishment, but was discredited when he got involved on the wrong side of a court case. Leuchter, a meek man whose appearance belies his grim expertise, develops what he says is a more effective electric chair. Before long he's in demand from officials who want his opinions on other kinds of execution. But when called to aid the case of an accused Holocaust denier, Leuchter's problems begin.
Errol Morris's portrait of Fred Leuchter is a singularly strange and unsettling documentary — a tragicomic character study of self-delusion and dangerous pseudo-expertise. The film's novelty is genuinely high: Morris finds a uniquely American specimen, a mild-mannered execution-device repairman who slides into Holocaust denial with banal earnestness, and frames him with his signature Interrotron technique and Philip Glass score. The result is one-of-a-kind in tone — part dark comedy, part horror, part sympathy portrait. The cinematography is functional but not exceptional, relying on Morris's established stylistic toolkit rather than pushing it further. The plot is compelling but somewhat meandering in its middle section, and the ending, while appropriately chilling in implication, lacks a strong dramatic resolution. Acting is a non-category in the traditional sense but the subject himself is a fascinating on-camera presence, and the talking-head selections are strong.