Leofwine_draca MR DEATH is one of my favourite types of documentary: those that tell a story you're completely unfamiliar with, but which turn out to be extremely compelling and indeed gripping thanks to the stuff being presented. In many ways, this is a simple story of one man's fame and later infamy, although director Morris uses it as a springboard to embrace some wider concepts, such as capital punishment and the Holocaust.One of the important things that I took away from this was that Leuchter is no villain: just a misguided man who didn't necessarily deserve all the hatred aimed at him. Yes, he made a grievous mistake, but to destroy his life as a result of that error? "Let he who is without sin...", etc. The political side of the documentary is especially interesting as a result.

chedenberg Despite your political views on the topics of capital punishment and/or The Holocaust, this film is an interesting expose' into ONE man's intellectual, emotional and spiritual drives. An allusion to his upbringing and guidances was particularly fascinating, to me. One of the truest of documentaries I've seen. Thankfully, the filmmakers avoided dramatizing or projecting, to any great degree. It was, perhaps a bit conclusive. However, the film did not insult my intelligence. It left some things to the imagination, which I appreciate. It has led me to further study of the man, and the topics presented. It was also quite visually appealing. What more can you ask?

Scott This is a documentary that feels like a compressed news broadcast. Errol Morris, the reason why Werner Herzog ate his shoe, makes this documentary about, well, the rise and fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., also known as Mr. Death. During the 70's and 80's, Mr. Leuchter found himself in a successful niche improving upon and creating new machines to implement capital punishment. Though he was not a licensed technician, he sold blueprints and homemade machines to state penitentiaries as well as acted as a consultant on the lethal machines in prisons across the country. Where Mr. Leuchter went awry was when he was contacted to investigate the truthfulness to the claim that Nazis used lethal gas to exterminate thousands of people at concentration camps in Germany and Poland. His research found him knee deep in the ruins of Auschwitz, taking rock samples off the walls of gas chamber rooms to take back to the United States for arsenic analysis. His research turned up no traces of cyanide in the wall samples nor evidence of the structural integrity of the supposed gas chambers to safely contain the gases. He presented his findings to the trial of Ernst Zundel, a holocaust denier on trial in Canada for publishing documents refuting the Holocaust ever occurred, and was successively outcast from society as a fellow Holocaust denier. Through Morris' ninety minute film, we are shown the relative success of a man quickly sink to the bottom of the world's hating order through the publication of one research project. Mr. Leuchter is portrayed as objectively as possible in this film, sometimes even going to black while his voice continues, but the sheer tenacity of this man makes me grit my teeth with rage when I think of him. His lack of concern for human life and the sufferings of others and his ambivalence towards people as both models of death and financial gain is a horrifying example of what kinds of people do what kinds of things in this world. The movie was well made with nice interludes of beautifully shot slow motion 35mm as well as video footage from trials, video from Leuchter's own research in the tombs of Auschwitz, and the interviews of Leuchter sitting and talking about his work as calmly as a dove coos.

George Parker "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr." is a 1.5 hour biopic which tells the story of Fred Leuchter who was a self made engineer and a nobody until he naively took on the task of trying to prove or disprove the existence of gas chambers at Auschwicz. Not qualified as a forensic scientist, Leuchter testified in a Canadian court that there was no evidence of such gas chambers thereby throwing the matter of six million Jewish deaths during WWII into question resulting in his own persecution and the loss of everything from his wife to his career as an engineer who designed execution machines for prisons. The film is a solid documentary of Leuchter's life, nicely done with good music and cinematography. However, it trudges slowly through the biography with Leuchter doing most of the talking while mixing in bits of commentary from other people and never really getting into the meat of the Auschwicz death camp matter. Personally, I would have preferred less ambiance and more facts, background info, and testimony from friends, associates, and experts. When all is said and done you'll know nothing more about Auschwicz, a little bit about his controversial testimony in 1988, a bit more about execution machinery, and a whole lot about a small man of little consequence. Recommended only for those interested in Fred A. Leuchter jr. (C+)