In an act of cinematic self-destruction to rival that of Senator Joseph McCarthy's more public meltdown in Emile De Antonio's Point of Order, Fred Leuchter, self-professed capital punishment expert, not only allows himself to be used by a nefarious Holocaust denier, he also permits director Errol Morris to capture the entire process on film. Hubris or sheer stupidity? It's hard to tell, because for the first third of the film, as Leuchter calmly discusses various modes of execution, it's possible to see him as no more than a zealous professional. Once he falls in with the notorious neo-Nazi Ernest Zündel, Leuchter's profound devotion to his profession becomes his undoing, though the film never loses its sense of the absurd. The sight of a man spending his honeymoon in Auschwitz taking samples off the walls of the gas chambers to prove that the Jewish inmates were not gassed isn't just tragic; it's laughable. Morris is clearly appalled by Leuchter, but he's also amazingly compassionate about the man's self-delusions. He also knows that a story this good practically tells itself, and he keeps out of the way as much as possible, allowing Leuchter to be his own executioner.