The guy is either crazy or a serious set of juevos.

[Thomas Kratz]

Referring to one of the last scenes where Mr. Blecker tries to elicit sympathy from a couple of death penalty advocates at night in a field outside the execution chamber: This just doesn't make sense, at least not at first.  But maybe it does.  My emotions want to say "Are you friggin out of your mind Robert Blecker?  NO ONE in their right mind would EVER explain to ANYONE that the killer of four of their own children did it with compassion, to be as painless as possible!!!!!"  All in hopes to gain sympathy for a guy who should die the most excruciating agonizing prolonged death I could ever imagine up!  I don't want to hear anything else!

Ok, emotional "caveman" mode off.  Yes, this is exactly how I "feel".  But the question that the director and Blecker pose I think is, is this right?  Now admittedly, if Blecker wasn't pro-death penalty and didn't actually want to see this guy dead, I would have dismissed this plea of understanding as just another bleeding heart liberal (to put it nicely).  However, I cannot be afraid to think, no matter how painful it may be at times.  And in this case, I hate it.  It makes me VERY uncomfortable.

Actually, the whole film makes me think about a lot of things.  But in reference to above, I guess we do consider severity of the crime when doling out non-death sentences, I suppose a rational mind should be able to do that in death sentences also.  So what I believe he said at some point during the film or afterwards was that the guy didn't beat and rape and dismember the kids and that is different than the motivation behind this guys killing and the way he went about it.  As much as I really still hate to admit it I guess this is true.  It is true.  And throughout the movie we did see that this guy was still human, no matter how much I hate to admit it.  It makes me feel despicable to say so, as it is so hard for me to be rational about this kind of thing.

Well, guess I'm kind of rambling and not really sure if I actually said anything.  Just wanted to get some of my thoughts out there. I'm still not sure what I should think.

[Administration]

After taking some time away from this film (been about two weeks now I guess), and removing myself from the entire documentary and from the position of Robert, I have to ask MYSELF, "What WAS I thinking?" when I could see through Robert's eyes with limited compassion and understanding for this killer.  This is fascinating to me.  I can't imagine that I thought anything less than the previous poster did in his first paragraph.  I almost look at myself with disgust to be honest.  How can you have one ounce of civility towards a guy like that?  But I'm sure if I saw the film again I could once again see the logic that Robert is able to uphold.  Or, would it be simply the cloudiness of just becoming too close?