Cast: Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney, Gabriel Mann, Matt Craven, Rhona Mitra, Leon Rippy
Director: Alan Parker
Producers: Nicolas Cage, Alan Parker
Screenplay: Charles Randolph
Cinematography: Michael Seresin
Music: Alex Parker
U.S. Distributor: Universal Pictures
The filmmakers behind The Life of David Gale manages a tricky task – to make a movie that's about the Death Penalty, yet not to use the opportunity to preach from the pulpit. Although nearly everyone involved in the film's production is openly against capital punishment, their views do not turn the production into a left-wing polemic. The focus of the movie is not on the moral correctness or incorrectness of the Death Penalty, but on whether the American judicial system can be manipulated. The foundation of The Life of David Gale is plot, not politics. This isn't Dead Man Walking; it's a thriller and a mystery.
That being said, the movie is not airtight. In fact, its desire to provide the expected twists and turns audiences demand from this sort of movie represents one of its weaknesses. The ending is overwrought and inflated with unnecessarily melodramatic tension. A car breaks down at a key moment (I'm not revealing anything, since this is shown during the film's opening "flash-forward" scene) for no reason other than to allow Kate Winslet to do an imitation of Franka Potente in Run Lola Run. The contrivance is unnecessary, and it weakens the film by making an aspect of the conclusion resemble that of a less ambitious motion picture. The question isn't "will she get there in time?" It's "should she get there in time?"
Although Charles Randoph's screenplay is original, it has the rhythms of something adapted from a long and complex detective novel. There are times when the movie (especially the investigative sequences) has a rushed feel, as if a lot of action is being condensed into a short span of time. It's necessary to pay careful attention, because nearly every detail, no matter how seemingly irrelevant, is important. I appreciate that the movie doesn't spell everything out in big, neon letters at the end. A little bit of deduction is necessary to sort everything out, although anyone following the storyline should not have difficulty determining what has transpired. The Life of David Gale is a cut above the average brain dead thriller, but it's not a mind-bender on par with the likes of Memento. (Nor does it aspire to be; its ambitions are more conventional.)
The movie eschews a linear narrative, preferring instead to present most of its background information through flashbacks. Dr. David Gale (Kevin Spacey), an ex-philosophy professor at a major Texas university, is on death row for the 1994 rape and murder of a woman named Constance Hallaway (Laura Linney). Connie and David worked together for an anti-Death Penalty group, but his career took a spectacular nosedive after one of his students (Rhona Mitra) had sex with him then claimed that it was non-consensual. When Connie was found dead, the evidence pointed to David, and, thanks to the seeming ineptitude of his smarmy lawyer, Braxton Belyeu (Leon Rippy), he ended up with a date with a lethal cocktail. Three days before his last meal, he decides to meet with hotshot New York reporter Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet), whose reputation is as "Mike Wallace with PMS." Over the course of three two-hour sessions, he tells her the entire story, and, as his narrative progresses, she becomes convinced that he was framed. However, once David is done speaking with her, she and her intern, Zack (Gabriel Mann), have less than 24 hours in which to prove him innocent.
At its worst, The Life of David Gale runs parallel to Clint Eastwood's True Crime (a good movie with a weak ending). At its best, it strives for something more original. Critical to the film's success is accepting that David is an impassioned believer in the immorality of the Death Penalty. You don't have to share the belief, but you have to acknowledge that it is central to his moral code. Recognition of this allows the screenplay's twists and turns to appear more credible and less preposterous than they might otherwise. I'm not sure that the movie holds together when put through a rigorous post-mortem, but it works on its own terms, and that's all that's important while you're "in the moment."
The strength of the acting helps. Kevin Spacey plays David in his usual low-key manner. We get the sense that David is a flawed human being, but not a bad one. He is an intellectual who has fallen into a trap he can't escape. We're never quite sure whether he's the manipulator or the victim. Is he guilty or has he been framed by radical right-wingers? Or is the truth something else? I'm sure that some of the uncertainty we feel is caused by our recognition that Spacey once played a character named Keyser Soze (sorry for giving that away to anyone who hasn't seen The Usual Suspects, but the movie is 8 years old).
Kate Winslet is given the rare opportunity to play a reasonably normal woman in a contemporary setting. No frilly dresses or corsets. It's actually a little disconcerting not to see her in period dress. Her American accent may be sloppy, but her performance is not. She's convincing as Bitsey – part bloodhound, part Sherlock Holmes.
The best acting job belongs to Laura Linney. If The Life of David Gale had been released in November or December instead of February, her name would be mentioned as a Best Supporting Actress candidate (especially when one considers the Academy's love of characters with this sort of affliction). It's a courageous performance – according to Linney, a body double was not used for the scenes when Connie is shown nude and dying on her kitchen floor.
Director Alan Parker has a solid resume, with movies like The Commitments and Angela's Ashes dotting it. He will not be ashamed to add The Life of David Gale to that filmography. The picture is neither flawless nor foolproof, but it's smart and tight enough to keep audiences off-balance and entertained for the running length. It doesn't hurt that it ponders the same questions that many people privately consider concerning the Death Penalty – and that it doesn't insult us by pretending to have a better answer than the one each of us has privately reached.
© 2003 James Berardinelli