Life of David Gale' typical but well done death row drama
By Nicole Rodriguez
Romantic comedies aside, the death row drama seems to be one of the most overdone genres in Hollywood history. From the touching ("Dead Man Walking") to the rip-offs ("Save the Last Dance"), it seems that audiences have been offered more than their fill of convicts seeking spiritual redemption.
Nonetheless, Universal Pictures has made the decision to finance and distribute "The Life of David Gale," a death row drama starring Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey and directed by the legendary Alan Parker ("Midnight Express," "Evita").
On the surface level, "Gale" doesn't offer us anything we haven't seen before. Spacey stars as David Gale, a beloved professor and death penalty abolitionist who is convicted of the rape and murder of a colleague and sentenced to lethal injection.
In a last-ditch effort to exonerate himself to the public and, more importantly, his young son, Gale hires a hotshot reporter annoyingly named Bitsey Bloom ("Titanic" star Kate Winslet) to hear his story and prove his innocence.
Through a series of elegantly penned flashbacks by first-time writer Charles Randolph, the audience is let into the life of David Gale and into the conspiracy that landed him his current situation.
Although "Gale" fails to offer anything new to the death-row genre, it does prove to be an enjoyable and ultimately suspenseful ride with a twist ending that can only be described as genuinely surprising.
As written, David Gale is the type of character viewers might view as too extreme and over the top to be believable, but Spacey plays him with such sincerity and desperation that we have no choice but to believe every word Gale says. By the end of the film, we want Gale set free more than Gale wants freedom himself.
Also co-starring in the smartly directed tale is Academy Award nominee Laura Linney ("You Can Count on Me"), who rebounds nicely from last year's flop, "The Mothman Prophecies" with her sympathetic turn as the unfortunate victim.
Next to an actor of Spacey's talent and magnitude, Linney manages to holds her own in their shared scenes, ensuring that the victim receives just as much audience attention as the main character we are trying to exonerate.