All these attributes equip them perfectly for careers as prison officers on death row in a penitentiary deep down in the Georgia redneck belt.
Then along comes Sonny (Heath Ledger) - he's sensitive, as much as a Grotowski can be (he shares the same hooker with his dad), but he also sees blacks as equals, even friends.
His nausea as he escorts condemned Lawrence Musgrove (Sean Combs) to the electric chair is perceived by his dad, Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), as letting the family down.
A confrontation follows at gunpoint - Hank tells him he hates him and Sonny replies he's always loved his dad and promptly turns the pistol on himself. His son's desperate suicide acts as a catalyst for Hank, who's been trapped between his father's immutable prejudice and Sonny's open-mindedness.
When he chances upon Musgrove's widow, Letitia (Halle Berry), he finds his attraction to her flying in the face of his ingrained bigotry... and there's no denying the lure.
German-born director Marc Forster approaches this racially stratified society with a fresh eye in this beautifully understated story of redemption.
Hank and Letitia are inarticulate yet fully comprehensible to one another in a richly poignant way. Berry quite rightly picked up an Oscar as Letitia, a loyal wife who was just as much a prisoner for 11 years as her husband was on death row.
It's Forster's lightness of touch that makes this such a sublime account of how tragedy can have many outcomes, some positively uplifting.
Tim Evans
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