5/5 Outstanding Story
  by Michael J. Scott (Tallahassee, Florida)
I have watched this film several times since first seeing it on Pay-per-View and subsequently ordering it on DVD. It is a remarkable exploration of the personalities that made up Great Britain's' "execution squad." It concentrates on Pierrepoint, a real person charged with executing Britain's "baddest" and Nazi Germany's "badder." As a student of history I was impressed with its historical accuracy and the remarkable portrayal by the studio's actors. This is an unforgettable film, one I will watch time and again, just to remind me, if for no other reason, of man's inhumanity to man.

5/5 Intense and Powerful
  by Joseph J. Neuschatz M.D. (Long Island, NY USA)
When I ordered this DVD, I was under the influence. Under the influence of some of the four and five stars reviews I read here. I am happy I did. The movie remained in my mind long after I finished watching it. Last Hangman's hangover ?

5/5 strange subject but gripping acting
  by Bruce_in_LA (los angeles, ca United States)
a little slow to get going - in the first fifteen minutes i found the accents almost impenetrable - but really gripping (if you like this sort of thing) - couldn't turn it off.

3/5 Somewhat Disappointing
  by Choice Critic (Highland, IN)
This is a biographical story of England's most proficient hangman from 1933 to 1955. Albert A. Pierrepoint hanged 608 people in his service to the state. Timothy Spall, who did such a fine job as the craven son in "The Sheltering Sky" turns in a fine performance as Pierrepoint.
There is a strong resemblance to Robert Morley in his profile. Juliet Stevenson, as his devoted wife Annie, does an equally fine job.

Spall wonderfully conveys his open-mouthed shock as he receives his first training in how to treat the person to be hanged. When he finishes his training and tells his mother and uncle that he has made His Majesty's Executioner's list he expresses his feeling that it is only natural for him. He believes that hanging is in his blood since his deceased father was also one of the Crown's hangmen.

Between the time of his first day of training to his first hanging Pierrepoint has enabled himself utter detachment from the person to be hanged. This is most vividly conveyed in the face he adopts at each hanging as he puts a bag on the head of the condemned. His efficiency is displayed in the care he takes to manually place the condemned in the precise spot for a smooth hanging. The coldness of the protocol is chillingly well performed.

Pierrepoint takes no pleasure in the hangings. He carries out his duty without question through most of the film. His objective is to hang the condemned quickly and efficiently in order to minimize suffering. As with anyone who has a repugnant job Pierrepoint uses his emotional detachment to insulate himself from the moral questions raised by his profession.

However, when he is paid the high compliment of meeting one of England's greatest war heroes, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, his conversation about the interview with Annie has a strange and eerie tone of excitement and pleasure with being Monty's choice as the Nazi executioner. They gleefully discuss Pierrepoint's interview as though Montgomery had complimented him as the best soccer player in England rather than the best man to execute Nazi war criminals.

He has regained his professional detachment in the hanging of the large number of Nazi war criminals, men and women, who were the devilish stewards of the Belsen concentration camp. While viewing the prisoners with his military attache at his side, the aide begins to describe their war crimes to Pierrepoint. Their crimes are hideous but Pierrepoint wants none of it. He memorably chides the military attache to "...concentrate on height, weight, and physical condition. That way we'll get the job done quickly and efficiently."

He leaves the judging to others. Pierrepoint feels that once hanged the dead have paid the price and should be treated with dignity as he expresses earlier in the film about another condemned prisoner. It is this unique ethic of compassion which helps him survive in his hangman's world. His reaction to the shortage of a coffin for one of the Nazi hanged further re-vivifies his construct of the moral world in which he operates.

He also treasures his anonymity. When he is exposed as the Nazi hangman by an enterprising reporter he is uncomfortable even though he is lionized by the general public. Eventually, as public attitudes harden against capital punishment his status as a lion is changed to "killer." Following the hanging of a condemned prisoner that, to his surprise, Pierrepoint knows personally, and the hanging of the last woman hanged in the UK (Ruth Ellis in 1955), Pierrepoint and Annie realize that his moral compass is broken and he is too conflicted to continue as a hangman. He submits his resignation and the film ends.

The greatest weakness of the movie is the emphasis on the number of hangings depicted rather than a deeper examination of the conflicts created for Pierrepoint by his profession. The theme is present but it is too briefly shown. It is not adequately conveyed by a sleepless night and a brief acknowledgment to a friend that he does have inner conflict about his profession.

Examining the deeper questions raised by a film like this can make the difference between a good, entertaining movie and a great one that explores the complex issues of human character. This movie misses that opportunity, though Pierrepoint's final quote from 1974 at the end of the film does come to an interesting conclusion. Capital punishment was abolished in the UK in 1969. The last actual execution was carried out in 1964-by hanging.

One fiscal matter should be mentioned. This movie is overpriced in a $10-13 price range. I bought the movie because of the possibilities I saw in the story and due to a good, but somewhat deceptive, advertisement of the plot. It is not worth buying in that price range. Give it time and the price is sure to fall. I think it would be more reasonably priced at $4-6.

4/5 unforgettable true life story
  by Roland E. Zwick (Valencia, Ca USA)
****1/2

Albert Pierrepoint is determined to carry on in the time-honored tradition of his family. That's why, like his father and uncle before him, Pierrepoint has trained to become one of England's premier executioners, a man who approaches his grim job with the utmost professionalism, priding himself on using scientific precision to make his hangings the quickest and most "humane" in all the world. Indeed, with his careful calibrations and emotional detachment, he manages to turn capital punishment into nothing short of an art form. So sterling is his reputation, in fact, that he is called upon by none other than Field Marshall Montgomery himself to supervise the hanging of dozens of convicted Nazi leaders after the war. This elevates Pierrepoint to something of a national celebrity in the eyes of a war-weary, revenge-crazed public, a position he neither craves for himself nor truly knows how to cope with, for it calls into question the dignity of the entire profession.

Based on a true story, "Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman" offers a fascinating glimpse into a rarely explored, though frequently reviled, profession and the type of man best fit to carry it out. Filled with insight and depth and - dare we say it? - a certain amount of "gallow's humor," the movie makes no moral judgment on Pierrepoint as a person (at least until he does so himself); for much of the film, he is simply a man doing his job to the best of his capabilities, primarily concerned with making the exit from this world as speedy and painless a one for the men and women on the other end of the rope as is humanly possible. Pierrepoint refuses to see his "victims" as anything but human beings who, for that reason alone and regardless of what heinous crime they might have committed to have brought them to this point, deserve at least a modicum of dignity and respect in their final moments on earth. And he's determined to give at least that much to them. But no man can remain completely detached from the business he chooses to engage in, especially when it is as grim as this one is, and eventually Pierrepoint has to come to terms with the things he's seen and the things he's done in the course of that chosen profession. That day of reckoning is brought about by a strange twist of fate that sends Pierrepoint reeling, forcing him to reexamine what it is exactly he's so proudly and meticulously dedicated his life to.

As written by Bob Mills and Jeff Pope and directed by Adrian Shergold, "Pierrepoint" is itself so detached in spirit and tone - at least in its first two-thirds - that it becomes an ironic commentary on the dehumanization that lies at the very heart of capital punishment. But then, without making a fuss of it or in any way grinding its tonal gears, the movie, in its final half-hour, turns into an emotionally devastating plea against continuing the practice of state-approved killing (which England did, in fact, do in 1965), as seen through the eyes of one man who got to experience it up-close-and-personal.

As Pierrepoint, Timothy Spall delivers a performance that can only be termed a masterpiece of internalized understatement, while Juliet Stevenson is his perfect match as the subtly avaricious wife who is both supportive of what he is doing and secretly repelled by it at one and the same time.

On every level possible, this is a truly extraordinary work.