Powerful, heartbreaking and tragic. This film is seriously underrated and I only imagine because its ratings have been influenced by politics.

Jack O'Connell delivered his career-best performance in this as Cameron Todd Willingham. The transformation of Todd is perfectly brought to life by O'Connell during the course of the film. It helps that he shares excellent, heartwarming chemistry with Laura Dern who has come to play such roles so effortlessly. It was a joy to watch them share the screen.

That's mostly where the joys end though. This is a sad film that takes the tragedies to a whole new level - just when you think it not possible. It will more than likely leave you depressed - as it did me. But it also does the story justice, and is sensitive in its delivery. It doesn't paint Willingham as some saint the whole time, which adds authenticity.

The bond which develops between Todd and main correctional officer, Daniels (Chris Coy) was great to watch.

Trial By Fire is a thought-provoking film and will not only get you thinking about capital punishment, but life itself. Highly recommend to those after a heavy-hitting drama, or for fans of O'Connell and Dern.

The actor Jack O'Connell essentially plays two characters in "Trial by Fire." For the first half, he plays the role of the maniacal, out-of-control, and violent Todd Willingham, who was tried and convicted for burning his home and killing his three children. In the second half, he plays the angelic, reformed, and clean-cut Willingham, who was innocent of arson. But we never saw a credible transition into the new man that the film's protagonist has become.

Based on a real-life "dead man walking" capital punishment drama, "Trial by Fire" has good intentions in its goal of depicting loopholes in the judicial system. When we learn early in the film that Willingham is being tried on a capital offense in the State of Texas, it is a foregone conclusion what will be the outcome.

The scenes with Laura Dern, the Good Samaritan, who champions the death-row inmate Willingham, are some of the best in the film. Dern's character Elizabeth neglects her teenage kids, who take a back seat to Elizabeth's efforts to petition for a retrial of Willingham's case. But the film never rose to the level of a "Manchester by the Sea" docudrama.

While film was technically well-produced and the performances decent, it still suffered from being two disconnected films in one. The opening twenty minutes were intentionally repellent in the portrait of the disgusting conduct of Willingham. The character of Willingham's wife was especially troubling. At the trial, she proclaimed his innocence, then became the final nail in her husband's coffin when she had the opportunity to support his appeal. Overall, the film remained a turgid melodrama without conveying a documentary-like feeling that would support its aim of social and judicial reform.

Did Willingham purposefully set a fire in his Texas home to kill his three young daughters in 1991? This fictionalized doc does a fairly accurate job of presenting a case that perhaps he didn't. Was there enough for an execution? Numerous investigations afterwards by organizations, media, & experts in arsons all suggest that not only were the original testimonies of arson & the evidence poorly conceived, but there were numerous mistakes (some perhaps illegal if not unethical) by investigators, prosecutors, even Texas Governor Perry. But, there are a lot of circumstantial suggestions that he could have set the fire. It would have made this doc even more informative if some of the later investigative evidence was added. As for executions I am generally opposed especially w/obvious mental issues, but when several are deprived of life & especially w/horrific actions I can see a justification.