The Life of David Gale * * *

Only innocence counts

Capital punishment is from a European point of view a backward criminal policy. It is mediaeval for a state to take someone's life. In daily politics it is a non issue. An issue that comes up in the context of foreign policy, if the admission of some country to the EU is discussed, like that of Turkey. Prerequisite for admission is the abolition of the death penalty. Nearly everybody agrees to that.
As a consequence, there is no protest movement, no abolitionists, or groups with names like death watch. There is Amnesty International, but it deals only with foreign issues. As a consequence there is no debate and people forget what arguments there are pro and against.
European criminal systems have their flaws. The English have the Guilford four. Four innocent men sentenced for two decades in jail for some IRA bombing they didn't do. They were freed after a retrial.
In Holland there were also two men released recently after being jailed for seven years innocently. At leased they were alive.

In the United States it still is an important domestic political issues that flares the emotions. The latest example is the Republican governor of Illinois Ryan who refused to sign for the execution of 167 people. His main argument: we can never be sure that they are really guilty. He calls it the demon of error. "Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error: error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die."

Many a film is built around this theme. The execution of an innocent character with whom we sympathize as the ultimate horrific "dead line" approaches. Will he or she be saved, will the story have a happy end or is evil prevailing again?

The life of David Gale is the latest example. Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) plays the leading role. David Gale is a brilliant philosophy professor and leading activist against the death penalty. Gale finds himself convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In jail, just four days from the execution he gives an exclusive interview to reporter Bitsey Bloom, played by Kate Winslet (as beautiful as ever). He says he is innocent and he asks her to find out why he was convicted. Who has set him up in this deadly trap. So she listens to his life story.

It begins with a false accusation of raping one of his students. His life becomes a mess. Divorced, expelled from his university job, unemployed. The only thing left is his abolitionist activism. But even there they don't want him anymore.
He turns to drinking and he finds some comfort with co- activist Constance Hallaway (played by Laura Linney). She is found dead and murdered. Gale is convicted because of it. Did he do it and why and what is the connection to his struggle against the death penalty? Is there a plot against him?

All the elements are there, now the plot has to unfold. I will not tell.

I enjoyed it very much. It is good acted, it is exciting, the plot ended unexpected to me.
In the trailer is said: How far will activists go? Well, very far, but dealing with this question is not the strongest side of the film. An interesting theme that is not quite dealt with, which is a pity. But I presume the Hollywood rules won.

| IMBd | Official site | Illinois Death Row Emptied |
- posted by DD @ 11:58 PM Perma Link/Print