Werner Herzog explores the death penalty in the US by looking into the story of a particular crime. Herzog injects himself and his opinions (anti-death penalty) into the film in an obstructive manner, at one point verbally leading one of the victims in one direction while she tries to express her quite different opinion. He never really makes a connection with the two murderers, who the audience really can't sympathize with. One of them had a bad upbringing -- dad in jail. The other (probably the bigger culprit) had a middle class upbringing but ended up living in his car because he could not bear his parents sending him to an adventure camp, etc. Neither shows any remorse and they both say that they fell into bad company -- the other person did all of the killing. Since both prisoners are irredeemable, it's hard to be concerned about killing them. Indeed, the only really positive outcome in the movie is that one of the victims finds the execution very cathartic. The film is still sort of worth watching because it does show a trashy slice of American culture.
