Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

I like Kevin Spacey. I like the sardonic persona he often plays, and the edge in his delivery of lines. He’s an actor that I consistently enjoy watching, even when the material isn’t worthy of his talent. This has never been more evident than in The Life of David Gale. David Gale is an enigma of a man (nothing unusual for Spacey there). Nobody really knows too much about him in his present incarnation. The movie purports to show us this man, his life, and how he ended up where he is.

Where he is, in fact, is on death row for rape and murder. Mere days before his execution is to take place, he summons a well known reporter, Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) – that’s right, the female protagonist in this film is named Bitsey Bloom. I can’t imagine what they were thinking. They might as well just have named her “Dumb Blonde” and gotten it over with. Anyway, David summons Bitsey in order to provide her with his story of the events that led to his incarceration and death sentence. This is a man who has never given an interview, and waits until the very last minute to do so. How is a hard-nosed, ethical, reporter named Bitsey to pass up this opportunity? She can’t, of course. But she is saddled with an intern to take with her. For, really, what’s a death row interview caper without a sidekick?

It’s clear in the first five minutes of the film (and actually says on the blurb on the DVD) that David did not commit this crime. It takes Bitsey the requisite two extra minutes to be convinced before becoming his crusader. In this case, his crying crusader. Bitsey does a lot of crying here. Apparently crying on cue is something Winslet does well, and it is important to make use of your stars best assets, after all.

So David tells his story. He was once a highly regarded philosophy professor, albeit one with a propensity for drinking too much and partying with students. This, as we know from countless other movies, is nothing but a recipe for trouble, and lo and behold, trouble is where it leads. David is accused of a rape he did not commit, but the charges are dropped before he can be exonerated. His already shaky marriage crumbles, his job is over, he is bereft.

But David Gale is not all about teaching philosophy, oh no. He is also a leading and vocal death penalty opponent, working with an organization called “DeathWatch”. This is an avocation to which he is committed, along with his close friend Constance (Laura Linney), though he does have some trouble putting his fervor aside (as well as his scotch) in order to best serve the cause. He does not fail to see the irony of such a public opponent of the death penalty sitting on death row. Particularly for a crime of which he insists he is innocent.

So Bitsey sets out to find the truth. Even though David has been sitting on death row for six years, only the intrepid Bitsey can crack the case (granted, the movie does set her up to be in this last minute position). Of course, she seems to have help, from someone who wants her to know the truth. But she also uses all those hard-nosed reporting skills to dig deep and find those missing pieces that no one else has been able to find lo these many years. She needs to find the evidence that David is innocent, she needs to clear his name for the sake of his son, she needs to do this all in the next twenty-four hours! But she can do it, even if nobody else can, for she is Super-Bitsey, aided by the witty and handsome Zack-Boy (Gabriel Mann)! Together they will piece together the puzzle of the mysterious Dastardly Dusty (Matt Craven), the Beastly Braxton Beyleu (Leon Rippy) and most of all, the Despondent David Gale as no one before them has ever been able! And their car keeps overheating! The suspense, oh, the ghastly suspense! Or, unfortunately, not.

Writer Charles Randolph and director Alan Parker have what on the surface could make a pretty tight little thriller. But it just doesn’t come together that way. The entire Bitsey Bloom storyline is contrived and annoying from the outset. She serves as nothing more than a conduit through which to have David tell his story. There isn’t anything particularly wrong with this as a story telling device, but the character is nothing but a caricature of the “principled reporter” called in at the last minute. The entirety of this storyline is nothing more than an overblown episode of “The Practice”, but with extra crying. The movie tries to give the Winslet character meaning at the end, but it’s far too little, far too late. By then, her credibility is shot, and the storyline is used up within the first ten minutes. The fact that her car keeps overheating, yet she never manages to get a different rental, just adds another layer of contrived convenience onto the end of the film. And gives Winslet another reason to cry.

The actual story of David’s life is really rather touching and interesting. His downfall as a professor, as a husband, as a parent. His friendship with Constance, his dedication to DeathWatch, his attempts to pick up the pieces of his broken life. All of this is a nice bit of storytelling. In particular, the relationship between David and Constance is well developed. All of this is told in flashback. This is quite effective, given David’s current situation, unfortunately we then have to flash forward to what is supposed to be the primary story of finding out just who would commit the crime, who is aiding Bitsey, and how they can save David before it’s too late.

There are major twists near and at the end, and they aren’t really particularly easy to see coming. This would be great in most thrillers. Here it’s nothing but convenient and boring. The movie simply lacks any tension. The “Bitsey saves the day” storyline (badly written and executed) is too annoying and predictable, as well as filled with irritating convenience, to be a catalyst of suspense. The photography (Michael Seresin) is bland and adds nothing to the tone of the film. There is little if any discernible difference in the way the movie is shot in the different locales and time periods. That combined with some uneven editing of flashback into the Bitsey story result in the three distinct areas of filming (the prison, Bitsey’s world and the flashback sequences) running together rather than cutting away and leaving us hanging from one segment to another. Director Alan Parker uses place cues (the hotel sign is shown a ridiculous number of times) rather than a difference in tone and feel to tell us where and when we are. We get it, but it just doesn’t have any suspense. The schizophrenic score doesn’t help either. Done by Alex and Jake Parker, it is sometimes edgy and compelling, other times melodramatic and conventional. Perhaps another device used by Parker to delineate time and place, but one that ends up simply being noticeable, and not in a good way. Noticeable because the melodramatic bits fit so poorly with the edgy bits. All of these things together; the screenplay that gives us Bitsey, the photography, editing and score all come together to give us – blah. Nothing. In one particular scene, Bitsey is put into a position of finding both her first piece of crucial evidence, as well as finding herself in a potentially very threatening situation. The set up is there for a good, edge of your seat moment, but the pay off is bland and, as usual, teary. No suspense, no tension, no visceral charge from the whodunit. By the time the twists and turns arrive, we just don’t care.


The thing that saves The Life of David Gale from being a complete disaster is the chemistry between David and Constance. Spacey and Linney both give very good performances here, rising far above the material they’ve been given. Their on-screen relationship comes across as real and the bond between them strong. We believe that these two people love each other, honestly, without ulterior motive or sexual undertone. Spacey and Linney play this relationship so well that they barely seem to be acting. This part of the film is very strong – it isn’t an easy task to portray a male/female friendship without giving in to the all too common urge to make it sexual. The credit here goes to the actors for making this relationship comfortable and heartfelt. Too bad there isn’t more of that strength in the rest of the film, because this aspect alone surely can’t carry a thriller.

The weakest performance comes from Winslet. Granted, she had little to work with, here, but she never gives the ill-named Bitsey any feeling of being the hard, sharp reporter we’re told she is. After a few nasty and unnecessary verbal jabs at her intern, she dissolves into a weepy crusader, with clues falling in her lap as though she were Nancy Drew with a hanky. She fails to put any real sense of desperation into her chase for the truth, rather ambling her way toward it, then bursting into a hysterical mad dash at the end that just doesn’t fit.

In the end, The Life of David Gale is just an interesting premise, a mildly promising beginning from Spacey, and then 90 minutes of filler before they tell us what happened. The incredible thing is that the only interesting part of the entire film takes place during the filler. Without the very good performances of Spacey and Linney as David and Constance in the flashback relationship, this movie would have been a complete and utter waste of time. With them, it still isn’t a good movie, but at least I don’t resent it for sucking up two hours of my life. There is no way I can recommend the movie as a whole, but if for some reason you find yourself having to watch it, look for that relationship, savor the times it is on screen, and try your hardest to ignore the rest.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD