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'life' is un-veiling and truly riveting
by Yahoo! Movies User (movies profile)
Jun 4, 2006
7
of
7 people found this review helpful
The fist time you view a movie trailer, one knows that the movie is automatically worth seeing; why not? it looks like a fascinating movie: suspensful, comical, visually enticing, or intellectually stimulating.
I found that the Life of David Gale was an exception to this over-used media rule: unlike some of the flops that seem hysterical, or the dramas that seem intriguing, David Gale actually lives up to its trailer: it is a frightening, riveting, spine tinglinng, exceptionally woven drama that opens up quite a few excellent points and allows you to manouver freely in your thoughts; it allows you to think about what you have just seen.
After viewing David Gale the first time, I pondered deeply about the unfortunate character portrayed by Kevin Spacey. He is a successful college professor, death penalty abolishionist, husband, and father who is unable to deny his sexual hunger at a party to a seductive student seeking revenge.
Charged with rape, he loses his job, wife, child, and even his will for life itself. He is supported by his friend Constance (Laura Linney), a fellow abolitionist. He conitnues trying to aqcuire jobs and inside you discover that he is a very delicate person; he carries his son's stuffed sheep with him, he is a quiet man, easily hurt.
Told in flashback, this story is taken in by the eyes of Bitsie Bloom (Kate Winslett, the voluptuous leading lady from Titanic) a reporter assigned to write an article on Gale's view of the horrific murder of Constance he has supposedly commited. She has four days to write an article before Gale is lead to the chambers for his euthinization, with the entire country watching.
Reluctantly Bitsie interviews Gale. On the first day she covers the grounds of his job losing, and his relationship with Constance, his pitiful life outcast from his family.
By picking up the pieces of left by a distraught man Bitsie begins forming her own opinions of the murder, unexpected assumptions grow in her mind while the viewer allows his mind to take him away on a wild crusade of possibilities into the murder: could it be pssible that gale did not commit the crime with which he is faced, or are his passionate denials only a hoax to create sympathy after his execution. To believe the former one must put aside the fact that constance was found in her kitchen on the floor, naked, her hands were hancuffed behind her back, a plastic bag has been duct taped over her head, the key to her handcuffs was found in her digestive track, and David's semen was also found within her body .
The former and latter are temporarely removed from this picture and the story of David Gale make a grisley turn for the worse after the dicovery of a video tape, unknown to the general public, the video tape confirms the worse; you along with Bitsie and Zach (her acomplice) watch Constance struggle helplessley on her kitchen floor, kicking her legs, attempting to remove the bag from her head with her handcuffed hands which keep rotating in grotesque and desperate ways and by the time you throw the initial shock wave of terror of you rback to close your eyes the tape is over, and your feelings towards David Gale transform into disgust, and unsympathy.
But Bitsie persists, is David such a terrible person, or was this crime committed to frame David of something, but of what and why, he already has and had nothing to lose so why throw his life away for him? Or is there more than meets the eye? Does Bitsey really know what she's doing, or has David been telling the truth or only what Bitsey needs to hear?
David insists that he did not kill her, but who did, why would they video tape it, she might have committed suicide, but why commit suicide and video-tape it, possibly knowing that it might condemn him to death. Each possibility is as unlikely as the next. And as the watcher begins to re-think each delicate character, a final possibility seems to arise similtaneously in your head and in Bitsie's head, though the proof of this theory relies on the discovery of the second video tape.
Overall this is an outstanding film, with oscarworthy perfromances, and superb direction, I found the ending to be a little more weak than I presumed, though the ending worked properly with the co-ordination of the film and allowed the viewer to think about the life of David Gale, the death peanlty, and delve into hour long round table discussions about the movie.
This is a quality I find most enjoyable about a movie, the ability to sit down and fully discuss it. I also found that I liked the way the movie gave me enough information to visit some of my political view's.
I highly recomend this movie, and if you can engage into the disturbing plot you might find the movie quite an interesting one-I thouroghly enjoyed it; I hope that you will as well. |
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