The trailers for this movie paint a picture of a powerful indictment of the corrupt legal and political apparatus behind the death penalty. Prospective moviegoers are enticed with visions of a Grishamesque(sp?) thriller of corruption, planted evidence, false witnesses, missed opportunities and cruel twists of fate leading to the inevitable conclusion that the death penalty takes innocent lives. Instead what I got was a clumsy riff on the nature of zealotry....
David Gale (Kevin Spacey) is a death penalty abolitionist, philosophy professor, loving father, cuckolded husband, alcoholic, rape suspect--but is he a murderer? His presence on Texas's death row would suggest that the answer is yes. Kate Winslet is a newsmagazine reporter known for her willingness to go to jail to protect her sources....
When Gale, five days short of his execution, asks for her to be the one to interview him over his last days ... oh, and don't forget to bring the half million dollars (in cash!) BIATCH, the events that follow are meant to lead the viewer to an astounding denouement. I learned in a series of flashbacks that Spacey's character's downward spiral begins when he learns at a faculty party that his wife's transatlantic affair is no secret and then winds up trysting with a just-expelled coed at the same party. When she cries rape then drops the charges he faces divorce and becomes an academic and political pariah, living life one bottle at a time and working in an electronics store. Just when things are starting to improve for him, he loses his cause, his contact with his son, his newfound sobriety and then he winds up charged with murder.....
Winslet, shadowed by a mysterious and menacing cowboy, grows to believe that Gale has been the victim of a plot to frame him for murder. Her conviction grows when she learns that Gale and the cowboy were both involved with the murder victim, who headed up the local anti-death penalty advocacy group. If only this movie had found a way to spring a tale of justice gone awry from the simple love triangle dangled before me, I might have left the theater satisfied that the movie had a point of view and tried to drive it home. Sadly, this was not the case.....
Instead, it veers into inexplicably bizarre behavior on the part of the three players in the putative triangle. To detail it here would destroy whatever meager psychological payoff there is for your two hours, but suffice it to say nobody will believe the characters are sufficiently motivated or committed to carry through the scheme that was presented with, especially over the six-year span of time between the commission of the crime and the carrying out of the execution. The plot simply doesn't wash....
Nor is there any real exploration of the irony-riddled machinery that apprehends, convicts and kills murderers in death-penalty states. Even the anti-death penalty faction are simply props, there as a backdrop for our little foray into the world of shock. I hear about some of the injustices, but I don't feel them. Spacey's character is far too flawed in the past and sly in the present to engender much sympathy. I know there will be a last-minute race to present some newly found piece of evidence, and by setting this movie in Texas the writers have fairly assured the audience that even if it arrives in time there is nearly zero chance of it stopping the needle. How much better this movie could have been if it had been set in a state poised on the fence!
It would have also been better if this film had ended at its seemingly-natural endpoint. Instead I feel i was treated to an epilogue that ties up the loose ends still farther out on the limb of implausibility. A limb that for most movie freaks like myself will have long-since snapped under the weight of a plot whose major premise is simply too unbelievable to provide any entertainment or edification.
2 out of 5 stars
David Gale (Kevin Spacey) is a death penalty abolitionist, philosophy professor, loving father, cuckolded husband, alcoholic, rape suspect--but is he a murderer? His presence on Texas's death row would suggest that the answer is yes. Kate Winslet is a newsmagazine reporter known for her willingness to go to jail to protect her sources....
When Gale, five days short of his execution, asks for her to be the one to interview him over his last days ... oh, and don't forget to bring the half million dollars (in cash!) BIATCH, the events that follow are meant to lead the viewer to an astounding denouement. I learned in a series of flashbacks that Spacey's character's downward spiral begins when he learns at a faculty party that his wife's transatlantic affair is no secret and then winds up trysting with a just-expelled coed at the same party. When she cries rape then drops the charges he faces divorce and becomes an academic and political pariah, living life one bottle at a time and working in an electronics store. Just when things are starting to improve for him, he loses his cause, his contact with his son, his newfound sobriety and then he winds up charged with murder.....
Winslet, shadowed by a mysterious and menacing cowboy, grows to believe that Gale has been the victim of a plot to frame him for murder. Her conviction grows when she learns that Gale and the cowboy were both involved with the murder victim, who headed up the local anti-death penalty advocacy group. If only this movie had found a way to spring a tale of justice gone awry from the simple love triangle dangled before me, I might have left the theater satisfied that the movie had a point of view and tried to drive it home. Sadly, this was not the case.....
Instead, it veers into inexplicably bizarre behavior on the part of the three players in the putative triangle. To detail it here would destroy whatever meager psychological payoff there is for your two hours, but suffice it to say nobody will believe the characters are sufficiently motivated or committed to carry through the scheme that was presented with, especially over the six-year span of time between the commission of the crime and the carrying out of the execution. The plot simply doesn't wash....
Nor is there any real exploration of the irony-riddled machinery that apprehends, convicts and kills murderers in death-penalty states. Even the anti-death penalty faction are simply props, there as a backdrop for our little foray into the world of shock. I hear about some of the injustices, but I don't feel them. Spacey's character is far too flawed in the past and sly in the present to engender much sympathy. I know there will be a last-minute race to present some newly found piece of evidence, and by setting this movie in Texas the writers have fairly assured the audience that even if it arrives in time there is nearly zero chance of it stopping the needle. How much better this movie could have been if it had been set in a state poised on the fence!
It would have also been better if this film had ended at its seemingly-natural endpoint. Instead I feel i was treated to an epilogue that ties up the loose ends still farther out on the limb of implausibility. A limb that for most movie freaks like myself will have long-since snapped under the weight of a plot whose major premise is simply too unbelievable to provide any entertainment or edification.
2 out of 5 stars
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