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The Life of David Gale
A man against capital punishment is accused of murdering a fellow activist and is sent to death row.
2003 · Directed by Alan Parker · 130 min · Drama · Thriller · Crime · Screenplay in the scene database · 9 frames
Tagline
The crime is clear. The truth is not.
Plot
David Gale is a former professor on death row in Texas. With only a few days until his execution, his lawyer negotiates a half-million-dollar fee to tell his story to Bitsey Bloom, a journalist from a major news network. She has a reputation for keeping secrets and protecting her sources. He tells her his story, revealed through a series of flashbacks.
In 1994, Gale is a successful intellectual and the head of the philosophy department at the fictional University of Austin (not to be confused with the present day and then non-existent University of Austin). He is an active member of DeathWatch, an advocacy group campaigning against capital punishment. At a graduation party, he encounters Berlin, a graduate student who has been expelled from the school. When Gale gets drunk, she seduces him, and they have rough sex. She then falsely accuses Gale of rape. The next day, he loses a televised debate with the Governor of Texas when he is unable to name any innocent people executed during the governor's term. Gale is arrested, but the charge is dropped when Berlin disappears. However, his marriage, career, and reputation are all destroyed. Gale struggles with alcoholism after his wife Sharon takes their son with her to Spain and disallows contact.
Constance Harraway, a fellow DeathWatch activist, is a close friend of Gale who consoles him after his life falls apart. However, Harraway is discovered raped and murdered, suffocated by a plastic bag taped over her head. An autopsy reveals Gale's semen in her body and that she had been forced to swallow the key to the handcuffs, a Securitate torture technique which Gale previously wrote about. The physical evidence at the crime scene points to Gale, who is convicted of rape and murder and is sentenced to death.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Charles Randolph
- Cinematography: Michael Seresin
- Edited by: Gerry Hambling
- Music: Jake Parker, Alex Parker
- Production design: Geoffrey Kirkland
- Produced by: Alan Parker, Nicolas Cage
Cast
- Kevin Spacey as David Gale
- Kate Winslet as Bitsey Bloom
- Laura Linney as Constance Hallaway
- Rhona Mitra as Berlin
- Gabriel Mann as Zack Stemmons
- Matt Craven as Dusty Wright
- Jim Beaver as Duke Grover
- Cleo King as Barbara Kreuster
- Leon Rippy as Braxton Belyeu
- Melissa McCarthy as Nico the Goth Girl
Production
- Country: Germany, United Kingdom, United States of America
- Language: English, Spanish
- Studios: Mikona Productions, Universal Pictures, Intermedia Films, Saturn Films
- Budget: $50,000,000
- Box office: $38,955,598
- Themes: prison, journalist, death penalty, professor, texas, death row, interview, murder, reporter, intern
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