The Life of David Gale

Two hour public service announcement on the death penalty masquerading as a thriller, The Life of David Gale is an overblown, self-important film, featuring Kevin Spacey at his Oscar baiting worst. The perennially smug Spacey plays the title character, a Texas philosophy professor and ardent anti-death row campaigner, who is convicted of the rape and murder of faculty colleague Constance Harraway (Laura Linney). A few days before he is to be put to death, he invites a crusading, tenacious journalist, the marvellously named Bitsey Bloom (Winslet), to recount his side of the story. Stressing his innocence, he outlines the recent events which brought him to death row, and ponders why he may have been - shock! horror! - framed. Initially sceptical, Bitsey soon thinks that things may not be as clear-cut as they seem.

Although Alan Parker rarely makes films that fail to work on some level, he finally crosses that line with the sermonising hysterics of The Life of David Gale. His heart might be in the right place, but his heavy-handed, bullish treatment of the subject is galling and it appears that he doesn't have enough faith in the intelligence of his audience to form their own opinions on the topic - least, I suppose, it differs from his own. In terms of performances, Spacey chews up the screen in what is becoming an all-too-familiar type of role for him, one dripping with self-satisfaction. For the most part, Winslet doesn't have a whole lot to do, bar sit there and look interested in Gale's life story. When the screenplay eventually grants her centre stage, the film's power to work on an emotional level has been lost in a sea of righteous bluster. The good news? Linney's understated performance makes things watchable - just about.