The Life Of David Gale Review:

Synopsis

A powerful thriller directed by Academy Award Nominee Alan Parker, The Life Of David Gale stars Academy Award Winner Kevin Spacey and Academy Award Nominees Kate Winslet and Laura Linney.

David Gale (Kevin Spacey), a leading death penalty opponent finds himself on death row for the rape and murder of fellow activist Constance Harraway (Laura Linney). With only three days before his scheduled execution, Gale agrees to give reporter Elizabeth 'Bitsey' Bloom (Kate Winslet) an exclusive interview. But Bitsey soon realises that this assignment is more than she bargained for, and that a man's life is in her hands.

Putting her own safety in jeopardy, she frantically races to piece together the shocking events surrounding the murder. Before it's too late.

Critique

The Life Of David Gale was received quite poorly by most critics - the ending was usually singled out as the film's biggest flaw. While the tale does indeed suffer from a weak conclusion - and is far from remarkable in any particular regard - this negative reaction does seems to have been a touch excessive.

This Alan Parker film wastes little time in introducing us to Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet), a dedicated journalist with a career-defining opportunity - the chance to conduct the first interview with David Gale (Kevin Spacey), a former professor due for state execution in three days. It quickly becomes apparent that Gale has contacted Bloom in order to secure her investigative services over the next three days to prove his innocence and cancel his execution order.

The film's introductory scenes are strong, with the characters being presented to the viewer in a clear and succinct manner. Spacey is his usual charming and witty self as Professor David Gale, while Winslet puts on a decent American accent to accompany her journalist persona. The lack of needless secondary banter keeps the narrative very focused and some of the genre's most immediate pitfalls are mindfully avoided. The film even acknowledges that most audience members will recall Jonathan Demme's The Silence Of The Lambs during the opening prison scenes - listen out for the playful line 'Don't touch the glass... Windex is really expensive'.

However, the narrative starts to lose its rhythm towards the end, while the plausibility of Bloom's actions often fail to withstand casual scrutiny. As the film arrives at its final few scenes, the tone seems different than at the start and an undesirably generic mood dominates. Worse still, the dying seconds of Alan Parker's tale attempt to add a further spin on the story - far from exhilirating, this move is actually counter-productive and, if anything, seems slightly cheap and unnecessary.

Despite its significant shortcomings, however, The Life Of David Gale remains an interesting film on the whole, with solid performances and a relevant central premise working in its favour.

7 out of 10

The Video

The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen video transfer on this disc exhibits accurate colour reproduction and solid blacks, but sharpness is perhaps not perfect. Most shots have a touch of excessive grain on display, but, to partially compensate, no specks and scratches have been copied across from the source print.

So far, so good it seems - however, the visuals have a severe problem - aliasing. From the very start of the film, the image is infested with an abundance of jagged lines present over brickwork, window blinds, wire fences and more. This blockiness will constantly remind the viewer of the presentation's digital nature and is therefore wholly undesirable.

Overall, therefore, the transfer is passable (and certainly watchable as the film progresses), but nowhere near the league of today's top discs thanks to the afore-mentioned aliasing woes.

6 out of 10

As expected, the film is presented on this disc in the customary Dolby Digital 5.1 format. Dialogue is always clear, while the score bleeds noticeably to the surround speakers on a periodic basis. The soundtrack's major downfall is the almost non-existent use of the rear channels (except for music reproduction) - busy office scenes and political protests will come and go without so much as leaving a mark on the rear left and rear right speakers.

A genre like this can admittedly get by with a slightly passive 5.1 track but on the whole, some more activity would have been appreciated.

6 out of 10

The Extras

There are a fair number of extras on this single-disc title, all of which are fairly good (without being amazing), thus leaving a generally positive impression of the bonus material. All of the supplements are presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound where applicable, while the video items are shown in 1.33:1 full-frame unless stated otherwise.

First up is a good audio commentary by Director Alan Parker, who mixes straight behind-the-scenes production trivia with thoughts on the performances, the penal system and much more. Silent gaps are never excessive and, with regards to the information contained within, this is a well-balanced commentary. Unfortunately, neither first-time screenwriter Charles Randolph nor a single cast member accompany the director on this solo track - some additional input from other voices would have been appreciated.

Up next is the 'Death In Texas' featurette, which is a 9 minute factual look at the death penalty and, in particular, the approach of Texas in comparison to other states. A fair number of statistics are on offer, together with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Director Alan Parker, Kate Winslet and a few state prison employees. The layout of Huntsville, where some of the film takes place, is discussed, while Parker reveals that the Texan authorities were surprisingly co-operative with the production.

The extras continue with 3 deleted scenes with optional audio commentary by Director Alan Parker - sadly, these run for under 3 minutes in total. None of the sequences are particularly noteworthy and the main focus of the footage is Gale's downfall and alcohol addiction following the rape allegation made against him. There is an option to play these non-anamorphic widescreen sequences sequentially, while the commentary from Parker is worth listening to - he admits that the deleted scenes were best kept out of the film and that he usually prefers not to include any cut footage on DVDs.

Up next is the longest video extra on the disc, 'The Making Of The Life Of David Gale' featurette, which clocks in at just under 17 minutes. As with most promotional pieces of this length, the content is far from amazing, but fans should definitely give it a spin for some behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the likes of Alan Parker, Screenwriter Charles Randolph, Kevin Spacey, Laura Linney and Gabriel Mann. There is also a lot of praise given to Randolph's screenplay, which seems to have (somewhat strangely) been the key factor in enticing such top talent.

The 5 minute 'The Music Of David Gale' featurette follows, in which Alan Parker and his sons can be seen labouring away during score recording sessions. Some interviews are on offer, amongst which an explanation can be found as to why the director chose his two sons to compose the film. The supplements continue with 3 alternative poster concepts - despite the description, these are actually different DVD front covers.

The disc finishes with a minute-long teaser trailer and the 2 minute US theatrical trailer (both in non-anamorphic widescreen), together with some additional DVD-ROM features, which include a weblink to further Universal content. On a final note, the menu screens are animated and presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo background sound, while the disc itself is housed in a black plastic amaray-style case with no booklet or chapter listing inside.

Overall, the extras on offer cover a broad range of topics and are fairly satisfying to explore. However, aside from the audio commentary, none of the features delves into a particularly intricate level of detail, hence making this set of supplements 'merely' good as opposed to a great.

6 out of 10

Movie 7
Video 6
Audio 6
Extras 6

OVERALL (not an average) 6

DVD Bulletin

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