No Tomorrow

The true-crime documentary genre breaks through the fourth wall in Roger Weisberg and Vanessa Roth's No Tomorrow. In 2004, the filmmakers released Aging Out (VL Online-6/06), which presented three case histories of at-risk teens struggling in the foster-care system. In June of that year, one of the subjects, Risa Bejarano, was slain in Los Angeles, gunned down because she may have been a witness in a gang-related shooting. The prosecution uses footage from Aging Out to humanize Risa as few barrio casualties ever are, and to urge the jury to vote the death penalty for 18-year-old gangbanger Juan Chavez. Weisberg and Roth, however, are flabbergasted that their compassionate feature is being used as an argument for capital punishment. In No Tomorrow, the pair examine this thorny subject, while also attempting to make the callow Chavez come to life as a lost soul worth salvaging, no less so than Risa. A surreal note is struck when the judge in the case turns out to be Lance Ito, who oversaw the O.J. Simpson trial, but the film maintains a somber tone throughout in dialogues on criminal justice, mercy, wrongful conviction, social pathology, and the question of whether anyone should be put to death as a punishment. DVD extras include a featurette about Risa's last year alive. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)