百年50部英文燒腦電影賞析:[46]The Life of David Gale 大衛(wèi)·戈爾的一生

David Gale（Kevin Spacey）is a prisoner on death row in Texas. With only a few days to his execution, his lawyer negotiates a half million-dollar fee to tell his story to Bitsey Bloom（Kate Winslet）, a journalist from a major news magazine known for her ability to keep secrets and protect her sources. He tells her the story of how he ended up on death row, revealed to the movie audience through a series of lengthy flashbacks.
Gale is head of the philosophy department at the University of Texas and an active member of DeathWatch, a group campaigning against capital punishment. He loses a televised debate with the Governor of Texas when he is unable to point to example of a demonstrably innocent man being executed. Later, a graduation party, he encounters Berlin（Rhona Mitra）, an attractive female graduate student who had been expelled from the school, corners the inebriated Gale and succeeds in getting him to have rough sex with her She then falsely accuses Gale of rape. Later, she drops the charges and flees, but the negative publicity costs Gale his career, marriage, and reputation.

Constance Harraway（Lara Linney）, a fellow DeathWatch activist, is a close friend of Gale's who consoles him after his life fall apart. However; Harraway is found raped and murdered, suffocated by a plastic bag taped over her head. An autopsy reveals that she had been forced to swallow the key of the handcuffs used to restrain her, a psychological torture technique utilized under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceau?escu, which Gale and Harraway had both protested against. The physical evidence at the crime scene points to Gale, who is convicted of her rape and murder and is, ironically, sentenced to death. In the present Bloom investigates the case in between her visits with Gale. She comes to believe that the apparent evidence against Gale does not add up. She is also tailed several times in her car by a figure who turns out to be Dusty Wright（Matt Craven）, the alleged one-time lover and colleague of Harraway's. Wright slips evidence to Bloom that suggests Gale has been framed, implying that the “real” murderer videotaped the crime. Bloom pursues this lead until she finds a tape revealing that Harraway, who was suffering from terminal leukemia, had committed an elaborate suicide to look like murder. She and Wright are both seen on the videotape, showing that they framed Gale as part of a plan to discredit the death penalty.
Bloom does not find this evidence until the day of Gale's scheduled execution. In a frenzy, she tries to give the tape to the authorities in time to stop the execution. She arrives at the prison just as the warden announces that it has already been carried out. The tape is then released, causing a media and political uproar over the execution of an innocent man. Later, Wright receives the fee that Bloom's magazine agreed to pay for the interview, and delivers it to Gale's ex-wife in Spain, along with a postcard from Berlin apologizing for the false rape accusation. His ex-wife looks distraught, knowing Gale told the truth and that she effectively stole their child away from him.
Much later still a videotape labeled “Off the Record” is delivered to Bloom. This tape picks up at the point where Wright confirmed that Harraway was dead, then continues on to show him stepping aside to allow Gale, also present and party to the suicide, to caress her body. It was in doing this that Gale left his fingerprints on Harraway's plastic suffocation bag.
The plot has some parallels with the 1999 Clint Eastwood drama True Crime, but with a different outcome.
大衛(wèi)·戈爾（凱文·史派西飾）是德克薩斯州的死刑犯，在離行刑日只剩幾天的時候，某主流雜志記者貝西·布魯姆（凱特·溫絲萊特飾）前往采訪戈爾，布魯姆因擅長保守秘密和保護消息來源而出名。戈爾的律師與她協(xié)商，以50萬美元買下戈爾一路走向死刑犯的經(jīng)歷，整部影片以倒序的方式向觀眾展示了戈爾的一生。
戈爾原是德克薩斯大學哲學學院的主管，兼任倡導(dǎo)反對死刑的臨終看護組織中的一名活躍的成員。在一次電視直播的辯論賽上，他因無法舉出無辜人士被執(zhí)行死刑的例子而敗給了德克薩斯州州長。在之后的畢業(yè)生晚會上，他遇到了柏林（赫那·米特拉飾），一名早就被學校開除卻極具魅力的女研究生，她趁著戈爾喝醉的機會和他發(fā)生了性關(guān)系，后又誣告他強奸。雖然柏林后來撤消了控訴離開了，但此事給戈爾帶來的負面影響讓他失去了工作、婚姻和名譽。 康斯坦斯·哈爾威（勞拉·琳妮飾）是臨終看護組織的一名激進分子，同時也是戈爾非常要好的朋友，在戈爾陷入困境時一直安慰鼓勵他。不久哈爾威遭遇強奸，頭部被塑料袋包裹窒息而死。驗尸報告顯示，哈爾威被迫吞下了束縛她用的手銬鑰匙，這是一種心理折磨式的刑罰，是前羅馬尼亞領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人尼可拉耶·希奧塞古常用的手段，這種刑罰手段也正是戈爾和哈爾威大力倡議反對的。然而，具有諷刺意義的是，犯罪現(xiàn)場的物證都指向戈爾，戈爾被指控強奸罪和謀殺罪，被判處死刑。
布魯姆通過采訪和調(diào)查此案，發(fā)現(xiàn)認定戈爾是罪犯的證據(jù)并不充分。在此期間，布魯姆還數(shù)次被自稱是哈爾威前男友和同事的達斯提·賴特（馬特·奎文飾）跟蹤，賴特把一些資料塞給布魯姆，告訴她戈爾是被陷害的，并暗示真正的兇手在犯罪時制作了錄像帶。布魯姆憑著線索找到了錄像帶，發(fā)現(xiàn)哈爾威患有白血病，精心制造了一起貌似兇殺的自殺。哈爾威和賴特都出現(xiàn)在錄像里，他們故意陷害戈爾，精心策劃此案以表達對死刑的質(zhì)疑。
布魯姆是在戈爾執(zhí)行死刑當天，才找到這卷錄像帶的，她要把錄像帶及時交給警方，時間非常緊迫。當她趕到監(jiān)獄時，看守說死刑已經(jīng)執(zhí)行。布魯姆公開了這卷錄像，對無辜人士執(zhí)行死刑這件事引起媒體和政治的騷動。不久，賴特收到了布魯姆的雜志付給本次采訪報道的費用，并把這筆錢寄給了戈爾遠在西班牙的前妻，同時她還收到柏林寄來的明信片，為誣陷戈爾強奸一事道歉。戈爾的前妻看后知道了戈爾對她一直是忠誠的，而她卻帶著孩子離開了戈爾，傷心欲絕。
很久以后，布魯姆收到了一盤貼著“在錄像外”標簽的錄像帶，它從在犯罪現(xiàn)場賴特確定哈爾威死后開始錄制，這時賴特退到一旁，戈爾出現(xiàn)了。作為這次自殺的組織參與者，他親吻了哈爾威的身體，在引起哈爾威窒息的塑料袋上留下了自己的指紋。
這部影片的劇情與1999年克林特·伊斯特伍德主演的戲劇《犯罪真相》一樣，但是采用了不同的結(jié)局。