Hovering below the moral high-ground

The Life of David Gale is an unfortunate result of attempting to deal with a sensitive issue whilst trying to hold the attention of an easily distracted cinema audience. It hovers somewhere between the moral high-ground and a Hollywood "drama" whilst somewhere in the middle, Kate Winslet remains full-figured and Kevin Spacey remains, well, troubled.

David Gale (Spacey) is a philosophy lecturer who finds himself on death row for the rape and murder of a female colleague. A man with a colourful past, he has been accused previously of rape, has an alcoholism problem and as a sum total of all his problems has separated from his wife; he is also a member of "death-watch" — an abolitionist group that opposes the death penalty. With four days to go until his execution, he grants an interview with ambitious journalist Bitsey Bloom (Winslet) whom he hopes will be able to find the truth and thus prove his innocence.

Therein lies the start of the films problems. As Gale recounts his story to Bloom, so the film cuts back and forth between the time-line of today and the events that lead up to it. Not so much a problem as a standard technique, the net result leads to separate narratives — one in which Winslet takes the lead and the other in which Spacey is the focus. Given that this is The Life of David Gale, you wonder why such a focus is needed on Winslet, especially given her unnecessarily awful accent (or awfully unnecessary would do just as well), until you realise her side of the story is required because this really is as predictable as a race against time to ensure the innocent man is saved.

Ever since The Usual Suspects and his uncredited performance in Se7en, Kevin Spacey seems to have found himself in the somewhat baffling position of an actor who can continue to take lead roles in which men are invariably falling apart. The Shipping News and K-Pax both starred the troubled Spacey shuffling along to some sort of surrender, often to critical dismay given the evidence of his earlier work. Even in the somewhat dreary Negotiator with the great Samuel L. Jackson, Spacey managed screen-presence equal to that of his co-star, simply by displaying a bit of backbone and assertiveness; the combination of troubled man with assertive tendencies, one could argue, landed him the Oscar for American Beauty. So why he keeps insisting on these introspective and unexciting characters one can only wonder — hopefully he will be able to save himself from himself soon enough to deliver another role worthy of his previous successes.

As for Kate Winslet, I fear all may be lost. The only dimension she adds to this film is the one that ultimately smacks of cheap kicks and titillation (a grainy videotape of the murdered victim's last moments finds its way into her hands to be greeted by hysterical, over-the-top type "I'm affected by this" emotion) and leaves you asking why the director chose the English actress to play an American journalist when so many American actresses could have done it better.

Choosing an innocent man awaiting his fate on death row as subject matter guarantees a director emotive material, such that they could do virtually anything with it and ensure the audience will leave the cinema "affected". It also gives any director a sure timeline that begins with a crime and ends precisely enough with the death of the perpetrator, more often than not with some sort of last-minute reprieve scenario incorporated for dramatic effect. Taking this as a template, therefore, The Life of David Gale satisfies all requirements and is a suitable, if not uncomfortable evening's entertainment for a viewer who expects nothing more than Kevin Spacey being Kevin Spacey. That its ending ultimately does as little for those who are against the death penalty as it does for those who are for it, however, seems a little inappropriate, not only because of the message it implies in terms of the death penalty, but because it also suggests the film is trying to be provocative as opposed to accurate.

As such, The Life of David Gale is neither here nor there.