So much average

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

good back-story, and good acting

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Committed film on the death penalty.The plot is absolutely believable and keeps you stick to your seat during the whole movie, since it has some "thriller features".The acting is superb, Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, Laura Linney...and the supporting actors are also great: Gabriel Mann, Matt Craven, Leon Rippy...The point is in the end of the movie, which i will not reveal.Everyone has to take their own conclusions.Visceral and shocking, this movie will not leave you indifferent.Enjoy it.9/10

Let me start by saying that I never give movies I review one star and I don't bother reading one star reviews by others either. One star should be reserved for something with production values of porn. There are very few normal movies that fall to that level and IMO anybody who doesn't get that has no sense of proportion and isn't worth paying attention to.All that said, I was pretty tempted to give 1 star to this. Such a sad sad waste of talent. There is suspense here and there is good acting by Kevin Spacey, Laura Linney, Kate Winslet and others. But to what end?! Instead of a provocative examination of death penalty (a topic definitely worth examining) which is promised for a large portion of the movie what we end up getting in the finale is a disgusting story with absolutely NO message. None, zilch, nada. It made me physically sick but that was all. If that was the filmmakers goal then they succeeded. But really, it would have been much easier and faster to stick two fingers down my throat.**** SPOILERS ahead**** The twist in the end serves no purpose other than to shock. It completely cheapens the subject matter and robs the movie of any moral value. Like if Clarice had turned out to be secretly in cahoots with Dr Lecter all along and went to join him for dinner he was planning at the end of Silence of the Lambs. Certainly it doesn't contribute to the capital punishment debate. If you were for it then you'll be reinforced in your views and think that the main characters were twisted sickos who fully deserved what they got and proved nothing by their stunt. If you were against it you'll just be offended.Two stars. You've been warned.

This perhaps one of the best movies that received so many poor reviews. Audiences responded to it favorably so I'm not sure what determines if this is a good film. I liked it while it's not without it's flaws. This film is about a college professor named David Gale who is on death row to discredit the death penalty. Gale, Kevin Spacey hatches and elaborate plan to have a terminally ill woman named Constance Harraway to have herself video taped with a bag over her head handcuffed to make it look as though she has been murdered. Bitsy Bloom a journalist played by Kate Winslet is investigating the story suspecting someone else killed Harraway played by Laura Linney. It's not until the end when she views the entirety of a video tape showing Linny's character committing suicide. This comes too little too late when David Gale has already been executed by the time Winslet's character get's to the prison. whuh whuh whaaaahh :(This is a rather contrived but interesting flick. In real life the main character Gale would have to be nuts to martyr himself in such a way to teach society a lesson about the death penalty. In real life it wouldn't prove very ineffective considering our society seldom tends to ever learn a lesson from anything. Usually we keep implementing the same flawed solutions to the same problem yielding the same failed results.

This wasn't a bad movie but considering the calibre of actors involved it should have been a lot better and at times was kind of a mess. The story itself is intriguing and keeps you guessing, flipping back and forth in time as professor and anti-capital punishment activist David Gale (Kevin Spacey) tells his story from death row to journalist Bitsey Bloom (Kate Winslet) in the days leading up to his execution for the murder of fellow activist (Laura Linney).I managed to figure out both of the twists pretty early on which was aided in part by the bad choice of the opening scene, it was a huge spoiler and unfortunate as it took away a degree of suspense throughout the entire movie. I also could have done without Kate's over-the-top crying and wailing session, after "that" scene, it bordered on melodramatic and was just too much. 12.13