The film is about a professor of philosophy, David Gale (Kevin Spacey), who is arrested in the death cell in Texas. He is guilty of violation and murder. He has first raped his best friend Constanze (Laura Linney) and then murdered her.
The journalist Betsy Bloom (Kate Winslet) should make a interview with David to write a story about his whole life. She meets him three days everyday before he will be executed at the 4th day.
David and Constanze were together in an organization called “Death Watches”. There they try to prove that the system of death penalty also sentences innocent people to death.
In her interviews Betsy finds out that David is innocent. But it doesn’t become clear how far he was involved in the crime. So there are shown lots of scenes in the prison where you can see how a person feels who is innocent but arrested.
After a while Betsy gets a video tape of another guy who was in the organization and Constanze’s friend as well. On the tape there is shown how Constanze died. Betsy tells David about that the next day and he explains to her that someone wants to pin the murder on him.
Then on the 4th day (the execution date of David), Betsy finds a second video tape where it is shown that Constanze killed herself. Betsy tries to prevent the execution of David but she arrives too late. David is dead. David was executed though being innocent.
In the end Betsy gets a third video which was sent to her by David before he died. It shows Constanze lying dead on the floor and David switching the camera off.
The three people wanted to show with this simulation of a murder that the system of death penalty doesn’t work and innocent people are executed as well.
When I watched the film I noticed some parallels between it and our book. I could think about it easier how it was for Steve to be on trial while being innocent.
There are shown some prison scenes where you can realize how hard it is to get along with his own situation if there is no way out.

*steffi