Metacritic reviews

British actor Timothy Spall gives a shattering performance as Albert Pierrepoint.

At once desperately grim and unnervingly gripping, providing an exacting sense of the detail and procedure that went into death by hanging.

This measured bio-production might be viewed as a lesser companion piece to "Vera Drake" -- although in the case of Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman, all the period-piece tastefulness makes for a story more instructive than emotionally tangible.

This is a riveting story about a man who for years moonlighted as an anonymous hangman while holding a day job as a wholesale grocery delivery man.

Invites viewers to think critically about such weighty concepts as justice, atonement and personal accountability.

Like most television directors, Shergold is good with actors. Jowly, impassive and rigid with righteous dignity, Timothy Spall makes a wonderfully meticulous Pierrepoint.

Pierrepoint is worth seeing for Shergold's attention to process and for all the ghoulish details.

In Pierrepoint:The Last Hangman Timothy Spall sinks his teeth into one of the juiciest roles of his career.

Pierrepoint is handsomely crafted and well-acted, but its sense of scale is as constricted as a noose.

You have to wonder just how true to life the melodramatic depiction of these events is, especially since the film was made in partnership with TV's "Masterpiece Theater."