LETTERS FROM A KILLER

US, 1998, 95 minutes, Colour.
Patrick Swayze, Gia Carides, Kim Myers, Roger G. Moseley.
Directed by David Carson.

Letters from a Killer focuses on Patrick Swayze as a professor on Death Row for seven years. Eventually, he is freed after being framed and evidence not coming forward because of an election year. However, during his time in prison, he has communicated with four women by audiocassettes. He has reached out to all of them, claiming that they have kept him alive, fostering love in them. Prison guards, for mischief, exchange cassettes and one of the recipients of the letters is highly indignant, threatening to destroy him. When he is released, he realises that there has been a change of tapes and visits all the women concerned. Audience suspicion, according to the screenplay, should focus on the ex-policewoman played by Gia Carides. For most of the film, one suspects that she is the hurt woman. However, there is a highly melodramatic climax in which she saves the day. Roger G. Moseley portrays a sympathetic prison guard.

The film is entertaining - but is highly emotional, perhaps a touch more than absurd in plot, a potboiling melodrama.

1. An entertaining murder mystery? Unusual in its focus on a condemned man trying to save himself? The plausibility of the plot and the characters? The melodramatic style?

2. Prison, the release, the different situations of the women? The cross-country travel? New Orleans and the final confrontation in the apartment? Musical score?

3. The title, its ambiguity, its relating to Darnell, its relating to the mad woman?

4. The character of Darnell, Patrick Swayze and his style, on Death Row for seven years, his friendship with Horton, chess? The antagonism of the other guards? His occupying his time, writing the book? Its success? His receiving the letters from the four women, the exchange of tapes? His lawyer, her visits, the date for the execution, her decision to retry the case? His acquittal? Demonstrators outside the court?

5. His being freed, his quest then to meet with all the women, the mix-up with the tapes, the vindictive tape and the threats? In his car, the murders of the other women? Suspicions and dangers?

6. The four women: Stephanie, her photo, the tone of her tapes, her being married, her children, her abusive husband? Darnell going to meet her? Her wanting to leave? Her being murdered? Judith, older, the tone of her letters, the murder in the truck? Lita and her being an ex-policewoman, very friendly to Darnell, his being attracted to her? Her anger when finding out the truth and ordering him from the apartment? Her turning up at Judith's farm, his suspicions, her having the gun, wanting to take him in? The FBI examining her record and why she left the police force? Jurisdiction? With Horton, the escape, getting into the back of the truck, the FBI pursuing, on the horses, hiding? His discovering her name as that of the threatening woman's name? His trying to elude her? In New Orleans, with him, pulling the gun? The FBI focusing on her as guilty? Going up in the elevator, shooting the control? Meeting with Gloria, Gloria and her work, not under suspicion, a decoy? The confrontation with the three in the apartment, the shootings, Gloria and her madness, the anti-man status of her grandmother and her education? Her chopping off the fingers, ready to commit suicide, sending Darnell back to Death Row? The FBI having to race up the stairs, coming in, arresting Darnell? Lita turning on the tape of Gloria's threats, her being taken? The reconciliation with Lita, the final scenes and their speeding along the salt flats?

7. Darnell as a character, falsely accused, seven years in prison, his being bashed after being let out, his book, fleeing from the police?

8. Horton, his support of Darnell, his suspicions after the murder, helping him with the truck, the horses? The FBI letting him off?

9. The FBI, their investigations? With the two police who exchanged the tapes? The confrontation in New Orleans?

10. The popularity of this kind of murder mystery, emotional tangle, heightened melodrama?