Ronald Bradler [Russell Hornsby] is a convicted murderer who has been sentenced to death.  On the night of his execution the governor, while Ronald is on the table waiting for the technicians to flip the switch calls down and pardons him of his crime and frees him back into the world.  Ronald now faces the tough task of after six years waiting to be killed for a crime he didn’t commit to return to the world.

This is a film by Paul Fitzgerald, who also wrote and starred in the movie as Peter Miles.  The film tells the tale of this freed man, Ronald Bradler, who has to deal with the shock of coming back into society after six years of imprisonment.  However, there is where the problem lies.  The film lasted a solid eighty minutes in which we are treated to a good spell of acting from Russell Hornsby, who to be honest can be compared to Sidney Poitier in this movie, but the story really glances at the trouble he has reintegrating into society rather than truly studying it.  Where this movie shines is in confrontation.

Eventually the film takes us to the confrontation of Ronald Bradler and the lead prosecutor in his case, Peter Miles.  Where some films would’ve spent a solid fifteen minutes building up to the desperate scene that we do get in this movie we are almost shoved kicking and screaming into the scenario where the two characters have to talk.  It is without a shadow of a doubt the highlight of the film when these two have what can be called a heart to heart and where Ronald let’s Peter know that he has discovered something in particular about his case that would trouble anyone in his situation.  Here we get to see the top notch acting between these two small time actors.

The direction of the film is quite controlled and focussed which I find great for a first time writer/director and also very promising.  I’ve been lucky enough to see a slew of films by first time directors and it is generally the time for them to make the rookie mistakes, but the sign of true talent is when those mistakes are missing and I’m happy to say that they are here.  Not to take away from the talent of the director but for whatever reason I do feel like this movie could’ve dealt with an extra fifteen to twenty minutes exploring a few more of the issues that was plaguing Ronald’s life after release.

In the end this is a solid film that if you are at all interested in dramas about characters rather than about something that happens between characters then check this movie out.  I am not sure about its availability; I believe that it should be available via NetFlix sometime soon.  Please go and watch it if possible and give the independent film scene some love.

IMDB says 5.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes says N/A

I say 7.0/10