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Life of David Gale, The
Universal Pictures


6.3

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 41 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

Mississippi Burning

MPAA RATING: R for violent images, nudity, language and sexuality

Starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney, Gabriel Mann, Matt Craven, Rhona Mitra, Leon Rippy, and Jim Beaver

David Gale (Spacey) is a man who has tried to live by his principles, but in a bizarre twist of fate, this devoted father, popular professor and respected death penalty opponent finds himself on Death Row for the rape and murder of a fellow activist (Linney). He decides to confide in a reporter (Winslet) who quickly realizes that a man's life is in her hands. (Universal Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Charles Randolph
DIRECTED BY:	Alan Parker
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 22, 2003 Video: July 22, 2003 Theatrical: February 21, 2003
RUNNING TIME:	130 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The picture is neither flawless nor foolproof, but it's smart and tight enough to keep audiences off-balance and entertained for the running length.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

By turns brilliant and simplistic, moving and preposterous, the movie takes one of the ultimate hot-button American issues -- the morality of capital punishment -- and dissolves it into a volatile mix of psychological thriller and socio-political fable.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Plot contrivances, including an ominous cowboy-hatted figure who stalks Bitsey and her tagalong intern (Gabriel Mann), undermine the story's serious political themes.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Damned if Parker hasn't done it again. An intermittently good filmmaker but a consistently bad polemicist, he may well sway opinion here -- but, oops, not in the hoped-for direction.

Slate David Edelstein

As I've implied, this is a great midnight movie: I enjoyed every patchily edited, ham-fisted scene. But I don't like seeing the wonderful Kate Winslet look stupid, or the wonderful Laura Linney abase herself.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie depends on one of those big surprise endings for its effectiveness, but the script gives itself away in the first act.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

In trying to disguise his themes within the structure of a noir thriller, Parker was simply more successful at fooling himself than us.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

By the end, it reveals itself as too pat, too absurd and -- as a polemic against capital punishment -- philosophically self- defeating.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

There's no real artistry to this: It's as though Parker has just seen "Seven" and suffered some sort of David Fincher flashback.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Soon, the audience feels its own sense of despair -- for a movie that might have worked but didn't.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

A shock ending may be the best hope for this film, a convoluted mystery that thinks it's way smarter than it is.

Variety David Stratton

Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

In the end, the intelligence of the dialogue and crack acting are wrestled to the ground by the zealous politics, the formulaic narrative and a wan and flaccid air unusual from the reliably nifty Parker.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

More concerned with quickening our pulses than broadening our minds.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A self-righteous mishmash that can't decide whether to be a tribute to the fanatical leftist passion that thrives in college towns, an indictment of that very same fanaticism, or a ghoulishly didactic snuff-video thriller.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Randolph and Parker play fair with us, setting up a motive early and clearly. Yet whether you buy the motive or find it far-fetched, it almost immediately tells you who's responsible for the death.

LA Weekly John Powers

The movie's one unalloyed pleasure is a funny Goth Girl, played by Melissa McCarthy, who grasps, as Parker apparently doesn't, that the script is energetic rubbish, not The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Frankly, the film's real surprise is that it doesn't collapse under the weight of its sanctimonious posturing and howling pretension. The film is crammed with high-cultural references and people playing "smart," but none of it adds up.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film's greatest asset is Linney, whose prickly, finely calibrated performance as the doomed Harraway makes her loss resonate more powerfully than any of the point-counterpoint rhetoric.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Becomes more and more preposterous with each scene -- it's almost like performance art.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

The film doesn't have anything but bad news for Spacey fans anxious for the actor to break a stinky streak.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

The Grisham-esque murder-mystery plot got so scrambled that, finally, it’s anybody’s guess what the filmmakers intended.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Tries to show it has its heart in the right place, but it's such a crude undertaking that it doesn't actually seem to have a heart at all.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Some of this stuff should give you some good laughs. Unfortunately, the film's not a comedy, and once the conservative-bashing wears off, the alleged thriller elements kick in. Too bad that for you, the viewer, there's still another hour to go.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

Over and over in the course of the film, we can see Spacey, a good actor, reaching down into himself to find a source of verity for this plot-constructed character. It is not a pretty sight.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

So nasty, hysterical and long-winded -- and unintentionally makes capital punishment foes look so twisted -- you wish someone had administered a lethal injection to this dreck in its planning stages.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Positively reeks of self-importance -- the jokey, ham-fisted, pseudo-socially relevant, punch-pulling kind. It reeks worse of acting -- the Jack-Lemmon-in-a-coma Kevin Spacey kind.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

Bad movies are easy to make, but as this overheated and self-defeating propaganda piece shows, it takes a genuinely talented group of people to come up with the most astonishing botch jobs.

The New Yorker David Denby

One of those hyper-articulate messes which inspire awe and a kind of nauseated pity. [3 March 2003, p. 94]

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Brazenly ridiculous.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

David Gale deserves the chair for its brutal assault on subtlety.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Going through the motions of a liberal-Hollywood polemic with the sweaty, mounting hysteria of a bad liar, The Life of David Gale is foremost an overheating gotcha machine, scripted by first-timer Charles Randolph with seams showing and red herrings stinking up the joint.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Another tediously sanctimonious message movie from Alan Parker.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

A new low for director Alan Parker, this trite mystery thriller does for capital punishment what his "Mississippi Burning" did for civil rights: with its muddled message, liberal piety, and slick Hollywood plot mechanics.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Unlike "Dead Man Walking" and many honorable dramas before it, "David Gale" has nothing coherent to say about capital punishment, or anything else. It's a dead film lurching.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The secrets of the plot must remain unrevealed by me, so that you can be offended by them yourself, but let it be said this movie is about as corrupt, intellectually bankrupt and morally dishonest as it could possibly be without David Gale actually hiring himself out as a joker at the court of Saddam Hussein.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 41 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lars T. gave it a10:
Great film with a great Kevin Spacey.

B W gave it an8:
Better than most of the reviews suggest. Yes, it doesn't provide a great piece of evidence on which to base discussions on capital punishment, but it's a film, and it's very entertaining. The twists are excellent though there are a couple of plot holes which, if you can overlook them, don't really matter that much as they are necessary for the film to work.

Devon B. gave it an 8:
Excellent performances by all involved. I don't believe that it was a film about the death penalty, even though it might present itself as one. It was an entertaining movie. Not as horrible as some might leave you to believe, just go along for a thriller with some thought.

John M. gave it a 7:
This film was nowhere near as bad as most of the critics seemed to think it. It certainly seems to have touched on a raw nerve in the collective American psyche, as expressed in the professional and amateur reviews, and I suspect the reviews reflect more political than artistic opinion. The convoluted story doesn't really add a lot to serious debate about capital punishment, not just because the premise seems rather far-fetched, but that it is actually very artificial and contrived. It is too obviously scripted as a thriller, for which it is just as adequate as most other Hollywood thrillers, rather than as a film designed to stimulate meaningful debate on the justice or otherwise of capital punishment. As a non-American I can't help but tell all Americans reading this that I, and most of us civilised foreigners, find your continued fascination with, and use of, capital punishment bizarre and barbaric. Abolishing capital punishment would also save your reviewers from having to put up with what seems to be an onerous duty in having to review films about the subject.

W. Christopher H. gave it a 0:
I saw this movie some time ago, and everytime I overhear somebody in the video store say: "Have you seen this? It's sooo good!" I want to say the most insulting thing possible to that person about his or her lack of taste and judgement. I restrain myself, however, and the reason I do is because the film condemns any attempt on your part to question its logic. It speaks from a self-righteous standpoint that seems unassailable to those who, as yet, have no convictions of their own which is the vast majority of the viewing public. Personally I am against the death penalty as well, but this film sends a disgusting message and poses that violent extremism is legitimate when it is for a cause. I was appalled by this movie and found it a pretentious, divisive, and completely unproductive approach to discussing capital punishment.

Keb B. gave it a 7:
Yes it was predictable but the scenario was very plausible. While I am not an anti-death penalty advocate I do appreciate two qualities that make this a plausible scenario. 1) There are people who truly believe that their cause (whatever cause that is) is worth dieing for. And 2) there are also people who truly believe that the ends justify the means. It seems that most of the critics took major exception to the plausability. I also thought the acting was very good and that standard hollywood contrivances were certainly no worse than most thrillers which generally get much better ratings from the critics.

Jess L. gave it a 10:
I thought that this movie, despite it's nebulous plot was very good, I think Kevin Spacey did a good job in portraying such a character. It had some turns that were unexpected but the outcome was obvious... nonetheless I still loved it.

Life of David Gale, The Universal Pictures

Life of David Gale, The
Universal Pictures