Tonight's uncomfortable movie, Murder in the First (World, 9.30pm) is based on the true story of a man called Henri Young who, in the middle of the Depression, stole US$5 (HK$39) to feed his little sister. The court was not impressed with 17-year-old Henri's mitigating circumstances and packed him off to Alcatraz.
There, he fell in with some real criminals and tried to escape.
The wardens decided to make an example of him and he was sent into solitary confinement not for the usual eight days, but for three, uninterrupted years, where the only exercise he got was half an hour on Christmas Day.
His jailers treated him as an animal and he became one.
Kevin Bacon plays Henri and it is a thoroughly chilling performance, showing utter degradation. But he had not yet reached rock bottom. When released into the general prison population, he finds and kills the inmate who betrayed the escape plan to the authorities, and is promptly charged with first degree murder, which carries an automatic death penalty.
Christian Slater plays the inexperienced attorney assigned to defend Henri, and Gary Oldman does his dastardly sadist routine as the warden who tormented Henri for all those years.