I sometimes wonder why mostly older films are being hailed as the "best film ever made". Citizen Kane, the Godfather Trilogy, and so on. But why can't a fairly contemporary film be the best one ever made? I believe that a contemporary work can be just as good as the great classics - simply because the cinema industry must inevitably have evolved during the many decades since its inception. If you look at many older films that are considered to be very great, you can see that the quality of the work is not good enough to really engage modern viewers. For example the TV-film "The Bunker" features a miscast Anthony Hopkins as Adolf Hitler, some poor acting at places, unrealistic sets and shoddy craftsmanship through the entire thing. This is probably not due to any incompetence on the behalf of the film makers or the actors, but rather a result of time and money issues. Yet this TV film has only a 0.1 lesser rating on IMDb than "The Last Hangman." It seems to me that contemporary films that are actually not that good are often over rated because of massive budgets, distribution networks and incredibly skilled marketing. One example is the film "Avatar", which suffers from a horrible script that simply doesn't make sense. It truly does deserve the epithet "Dances With Smurfs" and will probably be destined for future oblivion. According to me, Avatar is the epithet of a brain dead popcorn movie that simply doesn't summon up any meaningful emotions. A good example of this is "La guerre du feu" of 1981 - a (probably) horribly over-budgeted and over-marketed disaster that features some very strange and poor acting. This film has the exact same rating on IMDb as "The Last Hangman". But who remembers it today? I dare you to watch this film without starting to laugh at the Neanderthal people. And I don't really think that is the effect that the director was after...In contrast, "The Last Hangman" is a superbly directed and acted film that simply knocks out all of its competition. It features Timothy Spall, who stands out as one of the greatest actors of his generation. I should warn you that this may not be an easy movie to watch. The scene where the character Pierrepoint tells his wife about hanging his friend Tish left me completely devastated. But I believe that this film is a very strong argument against the death penalty. Perhaps Pierrepoint realizes, at the end, that you can kill people - but you can't un-kill them.

This film is about the career of Albert Pierrepoint, one of Britain's last executioners; progressing from gloomy, umber anonymity in the '40s, through unwelcomed celebrity as the Allies' hand of justice at the Belsen war-crimes trials, to uneasy focus of some anti-capital-punishment vitriol in the late '50s. However, hanging is not the subject of this play, it is the gruesome backdrop against which the main characters struggle with the conflicts of conscience, duty, social propriety and making a living in hard times. Timothy Spall, who does not have a great dramatic range (unlike Juliette Stevenson who plays his wife), manages to make his vexatious guinea-pig expression work as that of the ruthlessly mechanical hangman taking pride in the speed with which he can dispatch each miscreant. To begin with, the meticulously-observed, depressingly-confined, scenery of the condemned man's cells, English back parlors and wartime pubs, accompanied by some beautifully lugubrious music, may make you feel that you might soon be in need Albert's merciful services, but this is a superb drama of unexpected depth and, before the end, you will be spun round, marched into a different room and dropped on a noose of pathos.

Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter), Eddie Marsan, and Juliet Stevenson star in a film about a man (Spall) who follows in his father's footsteps to become the best hangman in England.What strikes you first is the detachment with which he does his job. He does not become personally involved, just do it quick and professional.Outside the job, he is a grocer, and a character that would never be connected with being a hangman: he sings and dances, and enjoys comedies.After he was chosen to execute 47 German prisoners of war, he changed. His identity became known, and he became the target of those who wished to abolish the death penalty.His calm composure starts to unravel little by little.His last two shown were the tipping point.Spall was outstanding in this film, and had great support from Marsan and Stevenson. It was an intelligent and captivating drama.

Last year, I was flicking through the late-night channels when I came across a British TV movie called 'Mr Harvey Lights a Candle (2005).' I only caught the final half-hour or so, but something about the leading man, Timothy Spall, struck me as astonishingly poignant. I'd previously only known him as the groveling Peter Pettigrew/Wormtail in the "Harry Potter" films, a role that hasn't afforded him much dramatic depth. His performance as the titular Mr Harvey was movingly underplayed, suggesting a man keeping painful memories and emotions to himself – in his own quietly-wounded way, he struck me as the modern equivalent of Charles Laughton. Adrian Shergold's 'Pierrepoint (2005)' (originally released under the erroneous title 'The Last Hangman') also utilises this quality of Spall's persona.I was reminded of a 1950s American noir, 'The Thief (1952).' In that film, Ray Milland's Communist spy is kept completely wordless, a verbal manifestation of his internalised guilt and anguish. Albert Pierrepoint suffers in much the same way. In the course of his daily duties as an official government executioner, Pierrepoint witnesses more grief than any ten men, yet he is bound by an unspoken obligation to keep his work and personal lives separate. Guilt, regret and disgust are perpetually broiling at the back of his mind, but he is obligated to conceal his true feelings. Pierrepoint and wife Annie (Juliet Stevenson) live a feeble charade, one that becomes impossible to maintain when his duties as a hangman become public knowledge.There is no crime more condemned in society than to deliberately take a human life. Pierrepoint, in a corruption of typical moral values, is encouraged by the government to do exactly this. Indeed, he takes a grotesque sort of professional pride in his work, carrying out death sentences with a mechanical precision that is later compared to the inner workings of the Nazi death-camps – men and women are executed in time for hangman to return to his smouldering cigar. In Germany, Pierrepoint performed as many as a dozen hangings a day, and Shergold's camera spins around the gallows in a disturbingly artistic "ballet' of executions (contrasting Pierrepoints own purely-mechanical approach with his glorification by the popular British media). A well-made, but emotionally exhausting biopic.