Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

Shockless

Fred Leuchter is an interesting man. I knew that instinctively because Errol Morris wouldn't make a movie about him otherwise. Leuchter's specialty is execution equipment, and he specialized in improving the conditions under which criminals are executed. This alone would probably have made him an interesting candidate for a film like Morris's Fast, Cheap & Out of Control. The first twenty minutes of Mr. Death even play that way, but that's only the rise. Holocaust deniers hired Leuchter as an expert on execution, seeking to disprove that Nazis had actually slaughtered millions at Auschwitz. This provides the central conflict of the movie as Leuchter's life goes into a tailspin for concluding on shoddy methods that the "revisionists" are right.

Although Morris's approach with Leuchter is reminiscent of his amazing Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death can't hold a candle to it. Even though the fallout from the Leuchter Report will affect more people, I was infinitely more horrified to hear about the railroading of Randall Adams. I imagine that seeing Mr. Death without having seen Morris's previous work would improve it a great deal. I was also disappointed with the Caleb Sampson score, which pales in comparison to his outstanding music for Fast, Cheap.