Characterization and atmosphere are the main concerns of this picture, a story of two people trying to attain redemption in the face of unspeakable despair. Billy Bob Thornton plays Hank, a prison guard; we see him preside over the execution of one man before the death of another compels him to give up his badge. Halle Berry is Leticia, the wife of the last man Hank walked to the chair; before they meet, she suffers one more unbearably awful loss. Both of them are souls desperately in search of connection, but aside from the obvious stumbling blocks, there's the fact that Hank's a nastily casual racist and his dad (Peter Boyle) is a vile, vehement one. Directed by Marc Forster from a script by Milo Addica and Will Rokos, this is an only-in-America story told in a distinctly European style. The dialogue is spare to the point of nonexistence, and the filmmakers are clearly not interested in spelling everything out for the audience. With remarkable performances from Thornton and Berry (their lengthy sex scene will be much discussed, but probably for the wrong reasons; it is, in fact, one of the most wrenching portrayals of emotional need to hit the screen in a long time), the movie sometimes achieves the eerie pull of Monte Hellman's equally laconic Two-Lane Blacktop—a movie nobody saw in its initial release that has since become a cult classic. See this now, and be ahead of our time.