The Life of David Gale
Universal Pictures | Release Date: February 21, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
31
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
17
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The picture is neither flawless nor foolproof, but it's smart and tight enough to keep audiences off-balance and entertained for the running length. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
By turns brilliant and simplistic, moving and preposterous, the movie takes one of the ultimate hot-button American issues -- the morality of capital punishment -- and dissolves it into a volatile mix of psychological thriller and socio-political fable. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Plot contrivances, including an ominous cowboy-hatted figure who stalks Bitsey and her tagalong intern (Gabriel Mann), undermine the story's serious political themes. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Damned if Parker hasn't done it again. An intermittently good filmmaker but a consistently bad polemicist, he may well sway opinion here -- but, oops, not in the hoped-for direction. Read full review
60
SlateDavid Edelstein
As I've implied, this is a great midnight movie: I enjoyed every patchily edited, ham-fisted scene. But I don't like seeing the wonderful Kate Winslet look stupid, or the wonderful Laura Linney abase herself. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The movie depends on one of those big surprise endings for its effectiveness, but the script gives itself away in the first act. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
A shock ending may be the best hope for this film, a convoluted mystery that thinks it's way smarter than it is. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
By the end, it reveals itself as too pat, too absurd and -- as a polemic against capital punishment -- philosophically self- defeating. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
There's no real artistry to this: It's as though Parker has just seen "Seven" and suffered some sort of David Fincher flashback. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Soon, the audience feels its own sense of despair -- for a movie that might have worked but didn't. Read full review
50
VarietyDavid Stratton
Punches the expected buttons without being entirely convincing. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
In trying to disguise his themes within the structure of a noir thriller, Parker was simply more successful at fooling himself than us. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
More concerned with quickening our pulses than broadening our minds. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
In the end, the intelligence of the dialogue and crack acting are wrestled to the ground by the zealous politics, the formulaic narrative and a wan and flaccid air unusual from the reliably nifty Parker. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
A self-righteous mishmash that can't decide whether to be a tribute to the fanatical leftist passion that thrives in college towns, an indictment of that very same fanaticism, or a ghoulishly didactic snuff-video thriller. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Randolph and Parker play fair with us, setting up a motive early and clearly. Yet whether you buy the motive or find it far-fetched, it almost immediately tells you who's responsible for the death. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The film's greatest asset is Linney, whose prickly, finely calibrated performance as the doomed Harraway makes her loss resonate more powerfully than any of the point-counterpoint rhetoric. Read full review
40
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
The film doesn't have anything but bad news for Spacey fans anxious for the actor to break a stinky streak. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Becomes more and more preposterous with each scene -- it's almost like performance art. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
Frankly, the film's real surprise is that it doesn't collapse under the weight of its sanctimonious posturing and howling pretension. The film is crammed with high-cultural references and people playing "smart," but none of it adds up. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyJohn Powers
The movie's one unalloyed pleasure is a funny Goth Girl, played by Melissa McCarthy, who grasps, as Parker apparently doesn't, that the script is energetic rubbish, not The Greatest Story Ever Told. Read full review
30
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The Grisham-esque murder-mystery plot got so scrambled that, finally, it’s anybody’s guess what the filmmakers intended. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
Some of this stuff should give you some good laughs. Unfortunately, the film's not a comedy, and once the conservative-bashing wears off, the alleged thriller elements kick in. Too bad that for you, the viewer, there's still another hour to go. Read full review
30
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Over and over in the course of the film, we can see Spacey, a good actor, reaching down into himself to find a source of verity for this plot-constructed character. It is not a pretty sight. Read full review
30
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Tries to show it has its heart in the right place, but it's such a crude undertaking that it doesn't actually seem to have a heart at all. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Positively reeks of self-importance -- the jokey, ham-fisted, pseudo-socially relevant, punch-pulling kind. It reeks worse of acting -- the Jack-Lemmon-in-a-coma Kevin Spacey kind. Read full review
25
New York PostLou Lumenick
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. Read full review
20
Film ThreatMichael Dequina
Bad movies are easy to make, but as this overheated and self-defeating propaganda piece shows, it takes a genuinely talented group of people to come up with the most astonishing botch jobs. Read full review
20
The New YorkerDavid Denby
One of those hyper-articulate messes which inspire awe and a kind of nauseated pity. [3 March 2003, p. 94]
20
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Brazenly ridiculous. Read full review
20
Washington PostDesson Thomson
David Gale deserves the chair for its brutal assault on subtlety. Read full review
20
Village VoiceDennis Lim
Going through the motions of a liberal-Hollywood polemic with the sweaty, mounting hysteria of a bad liar, The Life of David Gale is foremost an overheating gotcha machine, scripted by first-timer Charles Randolph with seams showing and red herrings stinking up the joint. Read full review
10
Washington PostRita Kempley
Another tediously sanctimonious message movie from Alan Parker. Read full review
10
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
A new low for director Alan Parker, this trite mystery thriller does for capital punishment what his "Mississippi Burning" did for civil rights: with its muddled message, liberal piety, and slick Hollywood plot mechanics. Read full review
0
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Unlike "Dead Man Walking" and many honorable dramas before it, "David Gale" has nothing coherent to say about capital punishment, or anything else. It's a dead film lurching.
0
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The secrets of the plot must remain unrevealed by me, so that you can be offended by them yourself, but 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. Read full review
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