One of Eastwood's best ***SPOILER***

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2004)

Great acting, great directing, great music, great editing. I give it a 9.5. One suggestion I want to make could answer some of the critics I have read in several comments : I see this movie as an allegory about the death penalty. In this case, the fact that we know very little about the actual culprits and that the scene were they are arrested is fairly short is unimportant. What really counts is not that they are guilty, but that Tim Robbins' character is not. Penn's wife speech after the death of Robbins is that of the people in favor of the death penalty to Justice represented by Penn: OK we make mistakes, but we show strength. Bacon's shooting sign is the weak and ineffective attempt of the people who oppose the death penalty to have the Justice system get rid of it...but maybe I am over analyzing here.