Reviews

Chicago Sun-Times
Richard Roeper
"...Deadline, an excellent documentary...chronicling the astonishingly flawed criminal justice system in Illinois."

Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
"...the sleekly tooled narrative is...rich with political history, moral argument, and raw emotion...Its combination of high drama and carefully articulated principle delivers quite a punch."

The Hollywood Reporter
James Greenberg
"The film is an example of social activism at its best; it's not only enlightening, but it's an engrossing story that a smart television audience should embrace."

San Francisco Chronicle
Jonathan Curiel
"Deadline is a straightforward, compassionate look at a volatile subject."

Variety.com
Dennis Harvey
"Potent docu...offering an inspiring portrait of one politico who actually seem guided foremost by conscience...package is crisply assembled.

Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
"Deadline is...calm, factual and unsensational...It makes an irrefutable argument: Our criminal justice system is so flawed...that we cannot be sure of the guilt of many of those we put to death."

State Journal Register, Springfield, IL
Nick Rogers
"...an even-handed documentary that, through archival and interview footage, tackles nearly all the legal, emotional and moral arguments for and against the death penalty."

"...peels back America's psyche on the issue, as Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine did with gun violence..."

"In quietly shattering monologues, freed prisoners discuss both remorse and their inability to forget."

"Chevigny and Johnson track carefully through the many branches of a thorny issue...a well-made documentary..."

ColorLines
Kevin Y. Yim
"Deadline's coherence owes to skillful distinctions between capital punishment's moral, political and policy dimensions."

"As journalism-cum-art, Deadline captures...a rare victory for equal justice."

Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
"It gives you a chance to ruminate on some crucial questions of human error, justice and life-and-death."

The Daily News
Rush & Molloy
"The next hot documentary will be Deadline..."

San Francisco Weekly
Melissa Levine
"It's an excellent film. See it.