Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 16: BLOODSWORTH: AN INNOCENT MAN
Gregory Bayne’s portrait of a man wrongly sentenced to death row debuted in Baltimore last August. It came to VOD this past February.
In 1985, based solely on eyewitness testimony, Kirk Bloodsworth, a 22-year-old former Marine was convicted of the rape and murder of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton. As recounted in Bayne’s film, the authorities arrested the wrong man. Over the course of nearly a decade, Bloodsworth maintained his innocence, and, once he learned about the possibility of testing DNA, found a means to clear his name, ultimately becoming the first American sentenced to death to be exonerated in this matter. Since his release, he has become a crusader against wrongful convictions, with this project his latest tool to share his story. While Bayne’s sparse approach provides the viewer with an intimate experience of his captivating subject, the film’s structure unfortunately robs his story of full dramatic impact, moving back and forth in time and revealing the would-be surprising details of Bloodsworth’s case too early.
what (not) to doc 