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The Life of David Gale (Widescreen Edition)Rating:
Release Date: 01 June, 2003 Retail Price: $9.99 OUR Price: $9.99 You SAVE: $0.00! Cast: Complete Cast (9 total) |
The Life of David Gale (Widescreen Edition) Reviews
Relatively Disappointing Considering The People Involved
The Life of David Gale is an attempted morality play on the subject of the death penalty in America today. Its title character, a former Texas college professor and anti-death penalty activist, David Gale, stands convicted of murdering his friend, played by Laura Linney, and is down to the final days of his existence on this earth. His downwardly-spiraling life story, from arrogant leftist intellectual to condemned inmate, is told in flashback form via the exploration of the case by an idealistic young reporter, Bitsy Bloom, who believes in Gale's innocence and desperately seeks to prove it before it is too late. With the talent Alan Parker had here this should have been a great film, but the plot was dense and the characters one and all with the exception of Kate Winslet's naively duped reporter, Bitsy, were so disturbed and disturbing that I didn't like them. This is a bleak motion picture that seems padded out to the point of it being obvious this was a one message story. I honestly think the writers had just a single firm notion here, that being how they wished to end The Life of David Gale with its admittedly powerful twist, and the remainder of the run-time was hasty-concocted filler.
Is this film pro or anti capital punishment?
Don't read this if you haven't seen yet!
My summary is that it seems the plan of our three anti death penalty protagonists' (Spacey, Linney, and Craven) was this:
To create a situation where the CP system is discredited by sending an innocent man (Spacey) to death row, and using the neutral character (Winslet), along with some carefully released videotapes, to exonerate him at the last moment. I do not believe it was his intention to die for the cause, it's just that the darn car broke down!
The way the film unfolds is that until the very end, we think the cowboy (Craven) did it, Spacey was incorrectly put to death, and the film is anti CP. Ah, now the surprise ending, Spacey was involved, so the system worked...pro CP, right? Not really...this was more of a mercy killing due to Linney's illness, not first degree murder.
The truth is that the film is neither, it is merely illustrating that this is not a black and white issue, and that each case has it's own set of unique circumstances. I think it's a great film which has a unique story, great performances, holds your interest, and makes you think. It is a little unbelievable as many have said, but what movie isn't?
I suppose 'Pirates of the Caribbean' is more believable!
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