The Life of David Gale

This is another of those extraordinarily multilayered films that I love! It’s also a film in which the brilliance of the acting can’t be fully understood until you finally realise just where the plot is heading – and yes, it’s worth the wait.

It’s tough subject matter though – a man on death row for assault and murder of a former colleague. However, as the story unfolds it quickly becomes clear that things are not quite what they appear to be. The film takes us on a journey of flashbacks (as David recounts his story) and journalistic detective work as a reporter – Davids last hope of vindication, tries to put together the pieces.

Along the way, we see the lostness of a man highly respected in the worlds eyes, when circumstances tear the trappings of his status away from him. But lostness isn’t the final word, because David thinks he can “win” by placing his hope elsewhere – whether his thinking is misplaced or not I leave you to judge.

 

Ultimately, however, in different ways, the main characters all reveal a passion to look beyond their own interests, to try and achieve (what they believed) was a greater good. Laudable as this is, it couldn’t help but remind me of another man – a man who also looked beyond his own interests to acheive a greater good; a man who also was tried, sentenced and executed unjustly; and yet a man who not only predicted it all beforehand, but proved he had achieved his purpose by rising from the dead …. Only this man isn’t a work of fiction.