I'm always struck by the amount of thought and effort Leuchter puts into his execution devices compared to his unforgivably half-assed approach to investigating the holocaust.

"thought and effort" my ass. Leuchter's work as an 'execution technician' or whatever ridiculous title he gave himself was as sloppy and fraudulent as his holocaust denial work. I don't know if its because of this movie or what, but the myth that Leuchter was some sort of execution wunderkind who unfortunately was also a bit of a holocaust denier is just that: an annoyingly persistent myth. Leuchter's system is known to be actually more painful for prisoners, and he frequently sold his machines to states under the implicit threat that if they didn't purchase his machines he would make his money by providing 'expert' testimony for the defense.

The man is a deluded pseudo-intellectual thug, not the exploited bumbler this portrays him as.

Holy crap. Five stars for Midnight Man. Even none of that is true, you really sold it to me.

IF is what should go between "even" and "none." If.

I wouldn't say the film portrays him as "exploited." It portrays him as ignorant. It doesn't paint a sympathetic portrayal at all, I don't think.

Camonk: Check out Lipstadt's 'Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory' and Shermer and Grobman's 'Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?' or http://www.adl.org/issue_holocaust/leuchter-1993.asp for the dirt on Leuchter's bullshit credentials. Even the wikipedia entry on him contains some of the basics: the dude's only degree is a BA in history and he's been charged for working without a licence in the past.

I did some research on Ernst Zundel recently that lead me to Leuchter, and ever since I have been persistently baffled and annoyed by the tendency people have of buying that Leuchter's work outside holocaust denial circles was not also horrendously flawed and immoral.

I saw this documentary and thought it made him seem like a fraud through and through. Especially the parts where he admits he had no business designing gas chambers and lethal injection chairs.

This is a good reason to stop reading Roger Ebert, so you don't find yourself saying things like this

Kamlem isn't quoting Ebert. He's quoting ME. And if Ebert happened to say "Errol Morris is a god," then he was quoting me also.

Be careful what you say Jeff, lest Errol Morris clicks his almighty fingers and you find yourself cooking your stinkiest boot and eating it.

Lord, it's worse than I thought, you're also a fan of Werner Herzog. The next stage is having nice things to say about Cedric the Entertainer movies, then God is forced to take away your mouth.

Werner Herzog is good. Go play soccer, or whatever it is you do.

No, that would be The Thin Blue Line. As good as this is, it didn't save someone from death row.

All of his documentaries are excellent. I've never seen one that didn't hold my complete attention the entire way through.

Agreed. But this is the best one.