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Death row doc An Eye For An Eye is heartfelt but by-the-numbers

AN EYE FOR AN EYE (Ilan Ziv). 100 minutes. Opens Friday (November 11). See listings. Rating: NN  


Ilan Ziv’s got a great story here in the 9/11 avenger Mark Stroman – he became known as the Arab slayer after he murdered two people, South Asians who were neither Muslims nor Arab – whose execution was contested by one of the people he shot but did not kill. But Ziv just fails to make it totally compelling.

 The Israeli director got interested in Stroman when he read his manifesto of hate online during his crime -spree and then sought interviews with the imprisoned killer. Soon, he got to know Stroman and, seeing something more than a violent racist, became his friend and supporter.

 Unfortunately we viewers don’t arrive quite so quickly at the same conclusion and so for a time we’re mystified – and a little bit troubled – by the director’s level of attachment to his subject.

 Plus Ziv’s tendency to press familiar buttons subverts the pic. Strangers – women mostly – becoming preoccupied with Stroman? Check. Clock ticking to execution date?. Check. Legal challenges up to the last minute? Check.

 Ziv would have done better by giving equal time to Rais Bhuiyan, his surviving victim, who went on a nation-wide campaign to save the killer.

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