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The Life of David Gale
*
Cinema
Reviews - Week of March 14, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
130 minutes. Directed by Alan Parker. Written by Charles Randolph. Starring
Kate Winslet, Kevin Spacey, Laura Linney, Gabriel Mann, Matt Craven, Leon
Rippy, Rhona Mitra, Melissa McCarthy.
SAP: Hey, I just saw "The Life of David
Gale"! It's got Kevin Spacey as this guy in Texas who's gonna get
the electric chair, but, like, he used to march against capital punishment
and stuff. He calls up this reporter played by Kate Winslet to record his
story for a magazine, but, thing is, it's not like he wants her to help get
him off, cuz it's only a few days before his execution, and, well, you hear
about his life and stuff, and--
ME: Yeah, I've seen it.
SAP: It's really good, isn't it?
ME: No. It's an evil piece of junk that uses the
death penalty as a gimmick for a dumbass thriller.
SAP: Ooh, I really liked it!
ME: Why?
SAP: Well, it's got Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet,
and they're really good actors.
ME: Yeah, I love 'em. So what? Kevin Spacey risks
getting lazy now that he's a big movie star. Kate Winslet puts on a stupid
American accent and strains to seem curt and shirty, just so we know she's
a Professional Reporter. Then she does a lot of running around looking shocked
and gasping -- that's all women are good for in Hollywood thrillers, unless
they're playing the villains, doncha know. She actually has dialogue like,
"A person's political affiliation has no bearing on his propensity to become
a murderer!" And her character's name is Bitsey Bloom. Bitsey Bloom,
for Christ's sake.
SAP: Yeah, well, I really liked it.
ME: Why?
SAP: Well... it really makes you
think!
ME: About?
SAP: About, like, capital punishment and all that!
Just goes to show...
ME: To show what?
SAP: Like, about the system and all, you
know?
ME: Yeah, I do know. There's a movie called "Dead
Man Walking" which is a compassionate, stirring, thought-provoking masterpiece.
It shows the killer, his opponents, his support network, the families of
his victims, and treats them all with intelligence and consideration. The
ending of this movie-
SAP: Hey, wait... seeing as I'm a hypothetical
character used only for the purpose of writing a sarcastic movie review,
do you really want to tell me the ending? I mean, I haven't seen the movie,
because really I don't exist, and your readers will-
ME: Shush, I don't care. The ending of this movie
is beneath contempt. It need not be protected. It makes out that three death
penalty activists would conspire to fake a rape-murder situation, so one
of them could be executed for the crime and another would be able to prove
that an innocent person could be executed.
SAP: Yeah, it's really clever!
ME: No, it's sick. It's so clever, that knowing
in advance there was a surprise ending, I guessed the details of it an hour
before they came about. Whoa. It's so truthful, it makes out death penalty
activists care nothing about the value of human life. It says, in effect,
that we who are opposed to the death penalty are really just a bunch of
smartasses with concern for nothing but egotistically proving the other guy
wrong. Who is this movie for, anyway? The two hours of anti-death penalty
stuff are not going to interest people who see a need for capital punishment,
and the ending is going to enrage people who think that the method is
barbaric.
SATAN: Bidding you well, my friends! Pardon
the interruption, but I do believe, Mr. UK Critic, that you are asking the
wrong questions. Surely "The Life of David Gale" is a harmless thriller,
and the death penalty is a plot device. In the main body of the film, it
drives the intensity of the Spacey-Winslet relationship. For the ending,
it conveniently provides a twist. This is a movie for people who are acceptant
enough about the fact that executions exist to allow their use as a backdrop.
Relax a little, why don't you?
ME: The power of Christ compels you to shut the
fuck up. Texas has a revolving-door death penalty policy, more executions
than the rest of the United States put together, incompetent trial and appeal
procedures and a strong tendency to execute more black folks than white.
This is serious stuff. You can't make a movie in which the Texan death row
is a backdrop for goofy action -- I'm sorry, but you just
can't.
SAP: Oh, all you're going on about is the ending.
What about the rest of the film?
ME: The main parts of the movie are vaguely engaging
potboiler nonsense. In a story where the clock is ticking, everything builds
to the ending. The rest of the film is delay tactics -- Winslet scurrying
around, looking over clues, piecing together a puzzle. Chase sequences, rednecks
lurking in the background, yada yada yada. The visual trademark in between
chapters, where the camera starts 'dramatically' spinning around in between
close-ups of Significant words on paper, was pretty ridiculous. In the flashbacks
of Gale's story, Rhona Mitra has a nice supporting role as a slutty grad
student; she's sexy and dark enough to make a good femme fatale at some point
in her career. And this is about all that's fit to print. The sad thing is,
"The Life of David Gale" is in some ways very well made. The photography
does well to create grand spaces and make them look foreboding -- it captures
America, which can be awesome and creepy at the same time. The director is
Alan Parker, who did a great job of getting a similar feel in "Mississippi
Burning". One would expect him, and everyone else involved, to have more
dignity than working on a project like this. What were they playing
at?
SATAN: Well, there was a knock at my office
one day...
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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