 Alan Parker's The Life of David Gale starring Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet, although dealing with a far different subject, is also being called to task for heavy handedness. Writes Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times: "Mr. Parker seems to think audiences are incapable of coming to their own conclusions, so he relieves them of that burden by doing it for them." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post makes the same point with greater emphasis: "The Life of David Gale is so nasty, hysterical and long-winded -- and unintentionally makes capital punishment foes look so twisted -- you wish someone had administered a lethal injection to this dreck in its planning stages." Rita Kempley in the Washington Post also writes similarly: "After two hours of bludgeoning by Parker's moralistic mallet, even those who came in sympathetic to his views may leave with second thoughts. That's not to say that the question of capital punishment is unworthy of debate. But this isn't a debate, it's a sermon." But Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal suggests the film is really not an effort to sway public opinion at all. "Mainly it's a highfalutin' pretext for a lurid, laborious thriller," he writes. But Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times has the harshest words of all for the movie: "Let it be said this movie is about as corrupt, intellectually bankrupt and morally dishonest as it could possibly be without David Gale actually hiring himself out as a joker at the court of Saddam Hussein." |
