SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

bob the moo Fred Leuchter Jr is an engineer who has become something of a specialist in the design and manufacture of electric chairs and other methods of capital punishment. In this film we hear him discuss his work and join him on his visit to Auschwitz where he maintains that the mass extermination of people in world war II could not have been physically possible.As with many other Errol Morris, this is a fascinating study of an interesting character, although not one I would particularly want to meet or have any common ground with. When it is allowing him to talk about his trade the film is interesting mainly because Leuchter's opinion of his work and, more importantly, himself is engaging to listen to. His attitude towards his work marks him out as somewhat of an eccentric but yet he sees himself as an expert in his craft – which it is also strangely clear that he is not. However the film loses this "appeal" somewhat in the second half where it becomes more about Leuchter's report on the Holocaust more than it does about the man himself. In a way it does feel like Morris has lost the essence of his approach by making sure that Leuchter's words are not allowed to just stand unquestioned.Of course nobody could fault this approach because it was important not to just give this man a stage to speak unchallenged but it does rather change the film. Of course this is not to say that it isn't interesting because it still is. Pardon the pun but Morris does give Leuchter enough rope to hang himself and produces some telling moments such as him proclaiming himself the only expert in the world. The various spokespeople for the Jewish community don't really counter Leuchter and do themselves an injustice by being quite emotional in the face of his arguments. Fortunately there is enough actual factual response to him to make up for this.Overall then a quite fascinating film but not quite what I expected from Morris. As it gets deeper into Leuchter's report on the Holocaust it does rather lose touch with the man but is still interesting and the approach was a necessary evil given the subject matter.

Scott This is a documentary that feels like a compressed news broadcast. Errol Morris, the reason why Werner Herzog ate his shoe, makes this documentary about, well, the rise and fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., also known as Mr. Death. During the 70's and 80's, Mr. Leuchter found himself in a successful niche improving upon and creating new machines to implement capital punishment. Though he was not a licensed technician, he sold blueprints and homemade machines to state penitentiaries as well as acted as a consultant on the lethal machines in prisons across the country. Where Mr. Leuchter went awry was when he was contacted to investigate the truthfulness to the claim that Nazis used lethal gas to exterminate thousands of people at concentration camps in Germany and Poland. His research found him knee deep in the ruins of Auschwitz, taking rock samples off the walls of gas chamber rooms to take back to the United States for arsenic analysis. His research turned up no traces of cyanide in the wall samples nor evidence of the structural integrity of the supposed gas chambers to safely contain the gases. He presented his findings to the trial of Ernst Zundel, a holocaust denier on trial in Canada for publishing documents refuting the Holocaust ever occurred, and was successively outcast from society as a fellow Holocaust denier. Through Morris' ninety minute film, we are shown the relative success of a man quickly sink to the bottom of the world's hating order through the publication of one research project. Mr. Leuchter is portrayed as objectively as possible in this film, sometimes even going to black while his voice continues, but the sheer tenacity of this man makes me grit my teeth with rage when I think of him. His lack of concern for human life and the sufferings of others and his ambivalence towards people as both models of death and financial gain is a horrifying example of what kinds of people do what kinds of things in this world. The movie was well made with nice interludes of beautifully shot slow motion 35mm as well as video footage from trials, video from Leuchter's own research in the tombs of Auschwitz, and the interviews of Leuchter sitting and talking about his work as calmly as a dove coos.

erok2020 I thought that the brilliance of 'Mr. Death' was that Morris doesn't paint Leuchter as a villain. He seems a rather simple, unaffected character, emotionally retarded; real. While he is right that execution in many of the states is inhumane, he never questions the ethic of capital punishment.Leuchter is peculiarly meticulous, and at the same time, totally unscientific. (Who would seriously undertake an archaeological investigation of such magnitude - which is essentially what he attempts, at Auschwitz, chipping at one of Europe's great/terrible ruins - with such a slim knowledge of what he was doing!?) It is never less than fascinating.If anything, Leuchter seems to get carried away with the celebrity of being involved with Zundel. He goes, in an instant, from being a mere functionary to being a celebrity.On a side point: Holocaust revisionism is not, in itself, wrong. Now, wait a minute, let me speak. Holocaust revisionism is not wrong; it is merely incorrect. Theories can be debated, but not facts. And the historical facts speak clearly of the atrocities carried out by the Nazis during the Second World War.I think that the anger that is often vented at people like Zundel (or even at those who defend their right to speech) is misplaced; whatever his motivations - be they honourable or not - the argument should be rationally conducted. Remember, the onus of proof/disproof is on them; give them enough rope and they will hang themselves.Defaulting to partisan positions - which are positions of choice - and the inability to carry out a clear-headed discussion of points of fact, is itself a form of censorship which plays into the hands of the Zundels of this world. This point is illustrated brilliantly, by Noam Chomsky, in 'Manufacturing Consent', which I would also like to recommend to people who enjoyed 'Mr. Death'.

robinettesarah The documentary "Mr. Death" was a portrait of a man who designs execution machines for a living. He went from designing an electric chair for the state of Tennessee to somehow being an expert on all types of execution machines. There are scenes where he is strapped to the electric chair from Tennessee, with a crazed look on his face. I think this scene and one other, where he is testing his electric chair make Fred seem totally crazed. When testing the chair he was just starting at the camera, looking with anticipation to pull the lever to turn on the chair. He seemed so thrilled. This made me question if he is a credible person through out the film. Is he really thrilled to kill?