It’s the difference between meeting the poster-child for an issue–say AIDS in Africa–and being that poster-child’s best friend. For At the Death House Door, the issue is the Death Penalty. But the accomplishment is how Steve James and co-director, Peter Gilbert, make us intimate with the complicated life of Reverend Carroll Pickett.

 Carroll Pickett was a devoted and dynamic pastor to a church in Huntsville, TX. In 1974, an 11 day prison riot ended in the murder of two hostages—both women from Pickett’s church. He then became a bulwark in support of the Death Penalty, which his denomination officially opposed. In 1980, he left his pastorate and, unexpectedly, was offered a position as prison chaplain in Huntsville, TX. If a university town exists for a university, then Huntsville is a “prison town.” There Pickett began the most meaningful ministry of his career until in 1982 Texas reinstated the Death Penalty. He was assigned to spend the day with Charles Brooks Jr., walk him to the death chamber and stand next to him as he received lethal injection–the first execution by lethal injection ever. Pickett would go on to do the same thing for 94 more executions including Carlos De Luna’s, who was not only innocent, but took 11 minutes to die from a dose that should have killed him in seconds. After his retirement in 1995 (six years after De Luna’s death), Pickett became a leader in campaigning to end the death penalty.

That summary I just gave is like a keychain of the Eiffel Tower. You get the gist, you’ll recognize it when you see it, but actually being there is as different as night and day. Reverend Pickett is a stoic Texan, a man who felt God called him to ease the suffering of 95 death row inmates, a chaplain who outlasted several hardened guards and wardens who couldn’t take the executions. Even after he stopped believing in capital punishment, he believed in standing by the inmates in their death. He has a library of tapes, audio journals he’d record after each death–a surprising display of sentiment from a man who would look perfect in a four star general’s uniform. (I interviewed him myself at SXSW and got the feeling film festivals are on the level of a trip to Chuck E. Cheese for him.) He divorced and remarried a jump rope fanatic. Only one person has ever witnessed him cry. In a phrase, he’s a tough nut to crack. But Steve James, who could have gone after an empathy drenched, watery-eyed prison psychologist, relishes the challenge.

Steve James has a way of befriending people who are hard to get to know. He goes to great lengths to make sure that, even if we don’t like Carroll Pickett, we understand him. He helps us know there are certain things we just can’t comprehend because we haven’t walked in Pickett’s shoes. By the time At the Death House Door ends, you don’t have to hear Carroll Pickett say he’s been damaged from his 95 days spent in the death chamber. Somewhere beyond his stoic Texan surface, you can feel the damage. -Paul Moore, Spout.com

USA • 2008 • 98 MINUTES • DIRECTOR: PETER GILBERT AND STEVEN JAMES