Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Stevie) is one of the best documentary filmmakers alive. (Listen to his interview here.) He may be drawn to an issue to start a project but, unlike Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock, he doesn’t investigate issues. He takes on the much greater challenge of showing us a fully rounded human being for whom the issue is a backdrop, one of many. It’s the difference between meeting the poster-child for an issue–say AIDS in Africa–and being that poster-child’s best friend. For At the Death House Door, the issue is the Death Penalty. But the accomplishment is how Steve James and co-director, Peter Gilbert, make us intimate with the complicated life of Reverend Carroll Pickett.

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