Exonerated, The

A stellar cast is the chief appeal of The Exonerated, director Bob Balaban's film adaptation of Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen's true-life stage play. Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Aidan Quinn, and Delroy Lindo portray five of the six people (the sixth is played by newcomer David Brown, Jr.) who were convicted of crimes they didn't commit and spent years on various death rows before their cases were re-examined and new evidence led to their being set free. Performing a script pieced together from actual court transcripts, depositions, letters, and interviews, each of the six, some of them accompanied by a spouse, recounts his or her story from beginning (crime, arrest, and conviction) to end (i.e., exculpation and readjustment to the outside world, where they must "practice to be human again"). Some of the material is pretty shocking, reflecting outrageously inept and/or prejudicial work on the part of law enforcement, legal representatives, and/or court officials