Many movies about life on death row create two views for their watchers: its either morally wrong or right. It’s easy to assume throughout’The Life Of David Gale’ that the message conveyed is that the death penalty is wrong, however I believe the ending leaves you thinking’so which answer is right’.
David Gale starts out in this film as a man that has it all, he has a pretty wife, a cute kid and a prosperous job. He soon flushes this down the toilet by sleeping with an ex student, who then vindictively and wrongly accuses him of rape.
His life then takes a downward spiral, he loses his job, his family and the respect he once held in his community. He then takes the decision to use his existance as a tool for proving that the death penalty is wrong.
Alongside two’deathwatch’ activists(Constance and Dusty) Gale assists Constance in her suicide making it look as though he has murdered her. Eventually after many dramatic and frustrating scenes Bitsy Bloom the reporter looking in to Gales case reveals through the use of a’discovered’ video tape that Gale is in fact innocent. Or is he? He lets her know from beyond the grave(through his partner in crime Dusty) that he isn’t.
So at the end of this film you receive various view points on the death penalty. Some for and some against. Gale in his attempt to prove a point that you can kill an innocent man lets the viewer know that his point was farsical, he was involved in the death of Constance, and so has proved no point. Its very easy to be drawn in to thinking that this movie is’anti death penalty’ and’liberal’ however the ending MAY tell a different story. There has in fact been no innocent killing. All there has been is a very clever plot that attempts to eradicate the use of the death penalty in Texas.
So if you began the film’anti death penalty’ you could easily end it by thinking maybe im wrong and vice versa. Thats the great thing about this movie, it doesn’t thrust opinions and facts in your face to the extent that your feeling as though you’ve been fed either right or left wing tripe, it puts across two sides of an argument and allows you to once again settle down and form your own opinions.
Well worth a watch.