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THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE Send This Review to a Friend
In taking a swipe at the death penalty, Alan Parker's "The Life of David Gale" also maligns those who fight against it as a result of the diabolical tale spun in Charles Randolph's script. The story is a disgustingly manipulative one that dumps on the integrity of the anti-death penalty movement even while outwardly expressing an anti-capital punishment view. With friends like these…
The format is a thriller built around journalist Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) desperately racing against the clock to save the life of David Gale (Kevin Spacey), a philosophy professor and noted anti-death penalty activist convicted of murdering an associate (Laura Linney). Spacey has tagged Bloom as the only journalist to whom he will give an interview three days running just before his impending execution in Texas, a state gung-ho for capital punishment.
Parker can be heavy handed, but that's not the problem here. Little he does in the way of filming would have been amiss had the script had not been so ultimately obnoxious. The level of the acting is all right too, and Spacey has plenty to dig into, including Gale's alcohol problem, abandonment by his wife who makes off to Spain with his son, a seduction scene with an expelled student, a rape charge and the death house.
Winslet gets to turn the corner from a skeptic to one who believes an innocent man will be killed. A videotape that mysteriously turns up thickens the plot.
The protocol of not disclosing the outcome of a thriller is a nuisance in this case, because the essence of the film's offensiveness lies in its plot revelations. Suffice it to give a clue. In a broadcast debate with Gale, the pro-death penalty governor challenges him to name one innocent man Texas has executed, but he can't. A Universal Pictures release.
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