A serious-minded look at a travesty of justice, "Murder in the First" has noble intentions as it relates the "true" story of Henri Young, who was a prisoner in Alcatraz during the late 1930s.
The film has Young imprisoned as a youth for stealing $5. Then, after he participates in an escape attempt, Young is thrown into solitary confinement, where he spends three years before being released to the prison's general population. And when he comes out of the darkness, he promptly kills another inmate.
The San Francisco public defender assigned to Young's case is rookie attorney James Stamphill, who attempts to prove that Alcatraz as an institution, through inhumane treatment, turned a petty criminal into a crazed murderer.
It's a terrific story, and in the hands of a master storyteller might have been thrilling and revealing. And perhaps that's what Dan Gordon's screenplay offered. But director Marc Rocco ("Where the Day Takes You") is more interested in showing off dazzling technique, showy camera angles and a pseudo-documentary motif than he is in telling a story. The result is more than disappointing — it's extremely frustrating.
The film's opening scenes offer graphic representations of the brutality received by Young (Kevin Bacon), as we see him naked and chained to a dungeon wall, repeatedly beaten, left to wallow in his own waste and grovel for food, which he shares with a spider and a rat, hoping they will stay around for company.
We also see the associate warden (Gary Oldman), the guy who decided to make an example of Young, interrogating the prisoner, who is shackled to prison bars. And the scene culminates with his slicing open Young's ankle, crippling him for life.
By the time attorney Stamphill (Christian Slater, who also offers a voice-over narration) enters the scene, Young is a nearly catatonic, pitiable creature who scampers to a corner of his cell and huddles in the fetal position every time someone makes an unexpected move.
Eventually, Stamphill manages to bring Young out of his shell, as he builds his case and the film kicks into courtroom-melodrama gear.
As a thriller, "Murder in the First" has all the elements but is so flamboyant and overblown that it becomes off-putting quite quickly. As a study in human behavior, it's all histrionics. Bacon screams in prison, Slater shouts in the courtroom and Oldman . . . well, he just carries on like a madman, which is his usual acting style.
Even more irritating, however, is Rocco's camera work. Apparently the film's budget couldn't afford a tripod, because the camera is all over the place (thank you, "NYPD Blue"). A little of this goes a long way — but in this picture it never stops. Whether he's slowly circling the jail cell as Stamphill interviews Bacon, or zooming into the face of witnesses on the stand or keeping his voyeuristic distance with overhead and through-the-window shots, Rocco's direction is on overdrive.
There's also an inside joke late in the film, the kind of Hollywood gimmick that helps to undermine serious intentions. When Stamphill brings a prostitute into Young's cell, a gift to the young man who has never been with a woman, she is played by Bacon's real-life wife Kyra Sedgwick (whose name is not in the credits). Unfortunately, in a film this pretentious, even those who get the joke won't feel it compromises an already heavily compromised effort.
"Murder in the First" is rated R for graphic violence, profanity, vulgarity, sex and nudity.