Rating: 
Summary: An In Your Face Message In Disguise As A Film
Review: This movie apparently has three goals. First, to provide a venue to oppose the death penalty. Second, to provide another offbeat role for Kevin Spacey. Three, to bash Texans in general and George W. Bush (by implication) in particular for their support for the death penalty and the number of executions carried out in the state.Spacey plays David Gale, a former philosophy professor and supposedly outstanding teacher with a first class intellect who is on death row in Texas. Gale grants reporter Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) three interviews with him in the days before his execution. Ironically, he has been convicted of raping and murdering Constance Harraway (Laura Linney), his friend and fellow activist in Death Watch, a group opposing capital punishment. Bloom initially assumes Gale is guilty. However, as the interviews proceed in the three days before the scheduled execution, to the surprise of no one in the audience, she and her assistant Zack Stemmons (Gabriel Mann) uncover evidence that leads them to question the official version of events. The story unfolds in the form of flashbacks during the interviews with Gale, a technique which other reviewers have found distracting but that I felt was quite effective. As the movie unfolds, we learn additional complicating information, such as Harraway was dying of cancer at the time of her death and most importantly that Gale was an alcoholic who had already ruined his career and reputation due to an incident that occurred during a university party. While this story relies on the dual mysteries of how Harraway really died and whether Gale will be executed, there is no mystery at all regarding the motive of the director - to make a blantantly emotional and political appeal against the death penalty. He uses whatever techniques he can, including sexuality, strong language and reenactments of the crime almost at the level of snuff films. Kevin Spacey's performance is quite good, and as a whole I enjoyed the movie more than AMERICAN BEAUTY (I am sure to be in the minority with that opinion) but not nearly as much as K-PAX. The rest of the characters were pretty unidimensional, although Leon Rippey as Braxton Belyeu, Gale's attorney, and Matt Craven as Dusty Wright, a shadowy figure around the edges of DeathWatch, were well cast for their ambiguous roles. As the movie unfolds and the convoluted details get sorted out, the general shape of the only possible outcome for this impassioned sermon becomes clear, but the exact nature of how the events transpired is kept secret until the end and a few of the details are actually quite clever. If preaching about the immorality of the death penalty or the propaganda of liberal filmamkers will irritate you, don't see this movie. However, I am not a liberal and am not a blanket opponent of the death penalty, although I certainly recognize that it suffers from the problems of all human institutions. As a Kevin Spacey fan, I still found this movie entertaining, but felt that it's cleverness actually made it a less effective witness against the death penalty than the real life stories of people wrongfully convicted of murder and later exonerated and freed, including someone with whom I was personally acquainted. So this film is worthwhile if you are willing to simply watch a film with an interesting story while accepting the idea on which it is based at face value - it is a quite tense action movie. But if you want a great story, wonderful performances, moving screenwriting and a movie likely to inspire multiple viewings, this is defintely not it.
Rating: 
Summary: The Life of David Gale
Review: This movie is superb. Sure it's a movie about the death penalty, but its goal is to make us THINK, not to tell us how to. (Isn't that what the last frame is truly saying?) The acting is marvelous, the suspense is real, and the twist will blow you away. Check it out for yourself. Let the fine acting of Spacey, Winslet and Linney lure you into the theatre. In the very least, you will be rewarded with great conversation on the way home.
Rating:
Summary: mixed message of dubious value
Review: The intensity level of this movie is incredibly high, there's no question, but what is the director trying to say? Unlike, say Dead Man Walking or Dancer in the Dark, the message isn't crystal clear, it's quite muddied by the plot, which is in a way good because you do get a plot-driven movie, somewhat of a murder mystery with a message, instead of a preachy piece of work. The performances were mediocre with the exception of Laura Linney, and the story itself lacked focus. The "twist ending" ala Primal Fear and Usual Suspects lacked punch. It was just muddled and befuddled amperage.
Rating:
Summary: The Death of Subtlety
Review: Alan Parker, the director of "The Life of David Gale" (shouldn't this really have been called The Death of David Gale?), is a man who never met a political cause he didn't like. He's met prison life/drug enforcement in "Midnight Express" and civil and human rights in "Mississippi Burning." Both of these films are fun, populist movies: entertaining but bland and exploitive.
In "David Gale, " Parker takes on the Death Penalty as embodied by David Gale (Kevin Spacey), a fervent death penalty activist who is on death row and who calls in a magazine reporter, Bitsey Bloom (a radiant Kate Winslet) to help clear his name in the four days prior to his execution.
There is a decidedly ugly anti-intellectual bias in this film and setting it at a University and populating it with educated, though nasty and poorly behaved people only gives Parker more ammunition to spew his bile. He is out to make a point here and instead of using subtlety he uses a chain saw.
Winslet, looking slim and beautiful and Laura Linney both do their best with what is given them. But Spacey has been playing a variation of this role for the last few years and it is becoming old and stale. Where is the back-stabbing, acerbic, underhanded, charming Spacey of years gone by? What he needs to do is to mix it up. Playing roles that always show him in a good light has now officially becoming boring.
"The Life of David Gale" could have been, at the very least an intriguing murder mystery but unfortunately, Parker has gone the easy route of exploitation and cheap thrills thereby produced a dull, flat film that has nothing new to say and nowhere to go but up.
Rating: 
Summary: Critics Miss the Point of David Gale
Review: I was lucky enough to be invited to an advance screenig of this film, despite the fact that I was no Kevin Spacey fan. I am a changed person. This movie is interesting and emotionally complex. Critic's reviews pan this film as an over-the-top, preachy anti-death penalty movie. It couldnt be farther from the truth. Sure, this film will get you thinking about the death penalty, but it probably won't change your mind. It is a simple thriller with a plot twist so inventive, you'll never guess whodunit! I recommend this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Good story, well told
Review: I'm afraid that a number of reviewers were perhaps expecting this movie to make a stong anti-capital punishment statement. It did not. If that was the intent, the studio would have titled it "The Death of David Gale". People expecting a strong statement supporting abolitionist views will probably be disappointed. What the movie is, however, is a good story well told. It is a taut thriller, well paced and finely acted. The plot contains more twists and turns than a country road and requires the viewers constant attention. Kevin Spacey's character ranges from the highest peaks to the lowest depths and is always believable. For comparison, I thought his performance surpassed the (award winning) Russell Crowe role in A Beautiful Mind. In one scene, Spacey, in a drunken stupor, assaults a phone booth. Paul Newman's performance attacking parking meters in Cool Hand Luke pales in comparison. If not for the timing of the movie's release, this would be a guaranteed Oscar nomination for Spacey. Laura Linney's performance as a ailing activist is also quite good. Her character is difficult to embrace, but her performance is not. I was impressed with the operational aspects of the movie including the cinematograpy, lighting and editing. All were well done. The unusual musical score fits well with the story and has a syncopated rhythm like a clock ticking off the final minutes and seconds of the main character's life. If you like dramatic thrillers and enjoy trying to figure out "whodunit", then you should enjoy The Life of David Gale.
Rating: 
Summary: Nonsense
Review: I have never seen such a waste of talent before in a film before. We see Kevin Spacey playing the same role he's played a million times, then we have sell out Kate Winslet with a bad American accent and the same facial expression throughout the entire film. The only good thing about this movie is Laura Linney's performance. Avoid this Hollywood tripe at all costs!
Rating:
Summary: Not perfect, but very good
Review: I saw an advanced screening of this movie, and I really found it to be thought provoking and powerful. Spacey and Winslet gave great, believable performances. Some of the editing threw me off, which kind of detracted from the the story. I had become very interested in this story and was pulled into it, then the way in which the movie transitioned between present and past pulled me back out. In spite of that, I really enjoyed this movie.
I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone, so I won't give details. But my favorite part of the movie is the Govorner of Texas - a striking resemblance to GW. It was a nice touch.
Rating:
Summary: K-Pax
Review: This is in response to the, as yet, unreleased "Life of David Gale". In this review filled with sour grapes one of the movies I particlarly like is K-Pax. It was a good picture, and very different from most. I get the feeling it is written by someone who just plain doesn't like Kevin Spacey. The writer panned just about every one of Mr. Spacey's movies. I am a big fan and will continue to go to the movies he is in. Pardon my ignorance, but how does one critize a movie not even released? If the writer is a critic by profession, i.e.,Ebert, my advice is forget it go see it for yourselves. Those people are usually all wrong.
Rating:
Summary: K-Pax Redux: David Gale is a Mindless Hollywood Formula
Review: In the tradition of such rip-offs of Dead Man Walking, like the Sharon Stone downer Last Dance or the Clint Eastwood race against the clock True Crime, Hollywood yet again rehashes the man on death row plot formula. This time washed up, just-looking-for-a-paycheck director Alan Parker-who once made decent films like Midnight Express and Angel Heart, and one great creative experience known as Pink Floyd The Wall-takes two time Oscar winner turned Hollywood sell-out-or is he just being used and thrown out by the big city-Kevin Spacey and makes about the most bland uninteresting cliché filled ruckus of a film against the death penalty, The Life of David Gale. David Gale (Spacey) is the head of Death Watch, an advocacy group against capital punishment. He's also a college professor who we learn has some dark tendencies, like sleeping with one of his students in a drunken stupor. After being accused of raping this damsel in distress, David basically loses his life-his wife leaves him, he loses his job at the college and as head of Death Watch, and he becomes even more of an alcoholic than he was before. The problem with The Life of David Gale is that his life is not all that interesting. The film is obviously trying to make him human with his sexual desires and failures. But really it just makes him seem pathetic. There's this laughable scene where Spacey is stumbling through the streets, trying to act drunk, and I just couldn't keep a straight face. What happened to the Kevin Spacey that gave such a darkly humorous performance in American Beauty, to the Spacey of the cripple Verbal Kent or the detective of the stars in L. A. Confidential? What we needed here was to see David in his heyday, fighting against capital punishment, displaying his passion and his reasoning, and his fall from this. The filmmakers try to achieve all this in one scene where he faces off with the Governor of Texas on TV, clearly a jab at President Bush (and rightly so), where he wins the battle with his wits, but loses the war because of his elitist need of being all high and mighty instead of trying to win the debate. Bitsey Bloom, Kate Winslet's overly melodramatic reporter, is just as shallow a character as David. Are we supposed to sympathize with her just because she cries numerous times? If this role isn't a staged ploy for an Oscar for Winslet, I don't know what is. To top it off, Laura Linney's disease ridden victim when David goes forth with his pity lay just brings to mind a certain image with a certain quote, "Chloe looked how Meryl Streep's skeleton would look if you made it smile and walk around the party being extra nice to everyone." (Ed Norton as narrator in Fight Club). If you watch the film in question that indemnifies 90's pop culture, you'll know what I mean. The biggest problem with The Life of David Gale is its obvious attempt to focus solely on the theme of being against capital punishment. The reason Dead Man Walking worked so well is because we got to know the two main characters so well, there was humanity in Penn's murderer, and this is what screamed that the state's function is not to kill people. Here, these are just caricatures and we don't really care for them. Aside from Dead Man Walking, another good example of a film against the death penalty that doesn't force its cause on you is Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. It's about many things, from fantasy to sacrifice, and has a message, but in the end it doesn't force it on you, it makes you think, it raises questions. With The Life of David Gale, Kevin Spacey follows a dud with a dud-following up last year's K-Pax that was Hollywood alien cliché nonsense. After taking home the Best Actor Academy Award for American Beauty, Spacey's either sold out to Hollywood, or he's being used. All I can say is: Mr. Spacey, let's start being a little more selective. You can still get the big paycheck and make a good movie!
After the film was over at a recent advanced screening, I said to a couple of people next to me, "That was awful." They said they liked it and especially the twist at the end, which from my perspective doesn't really add anything to the film. Well, there you go, the verdict is in from the average movie going audience. I almost feel bad because I can't say anything good about this film, except that I agree with it politically-I don't want it to seem like I'm smearing this film for the sake of smearing a Hollywood big budget film...but folks, this is K-Pax Redux. If you like the same Hollywood garbage force-fed down your throat over and over again, by all means, rush out to see this film.
Alternative Recommendations: Dead Man Walking, Dancer in the Dark, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Fight Club, Pink Floyd The Wall, Angel Heart, Heavenly Creatures
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