Deadline

Credit Deadline for bravely exposing the complex legal and ethical questions behind capital punishment, a mode of justice that's presented here as flawed at best, racist at worst. The documentary's statistics-rich inquiry is framed within the controversy that swept over Illinois in 2003, when then-governor George Ryan issued a sweeping clemency, commuting the sentences of all 167 standing convicts as the products of an untrustworthy system that favored results over facts. Though they've elicited insight from most of their interviewees, codirectors Chevigny and Johnson are, unfortunately, less probing of Ryan's transformation from hard-on-crime conservative into humanitarian—inexcusable given their access to him.