Goethe once said that it is only a moment that determines a person's life, and the whole destiny.
The film tells the story of a respected university professor, David Gore, who is sentenced to death on suspicion of rape and murder, and three days before the execution, the female journalist Betsy tries to help find out the truth. In addition to his status as a professor, David was also an active advocate against the death penalty, and abolition became his life's goal. The film echoes back and forth, the first shot is to see a car that breaks down in the calm road, and Betsy running, and the film finally explains why Betsy runs, she is for the truth, but also for life. Whether to abolish the death penalty or not is a highly controversial issue, David is defending his faith with his life, and resisting the death penalty system with his life, which is a political contest with the rulers.
David was interviewed by reporter Betsy through the last three days of his life, and three days told david's life. The film is divided into three stories, showing a whole plot, and Betsy's mentality changes with it, gradually from not believing that David was wronged to beginning to actively find out the truth, bent on justice for David. At the critical time, the car broke down, and finally Betsy did not arrive at the execution site in time, and David's life also came to an end, and Betsy lost her voice and cried bitterly. The law is merciless, but there are sentient beings, and David and his companions, speaking out with death, prove that the death penalty sometimes wronged innocent people. David is a very upright university professor, but he was framed by his own students and considered a rapist by others, he was at a party, because of the anesthetic effect of alcohol, did not resist the naked temptation of student Pauline, and since then he has lost his job in the notoriety of rape, his original happy family has also collapsed, his wife and children have left him, there is no place to take him to work, that time is his most depressed time, from a respected professor to an unemployed vagabond, he is obsessed with his son. But he never forgot his faith, his son and faith are the most important parts of his life, and all he wants to do to abolish the death penalty and go to prison is to make his son change his mind about his father.
In the film, the disc is a very important object, and the entire video in the disc is also divided into three parts, and the director slowly reveals the truth of the whole thing to the public in this way, and the ending is shocking. The first part is a scene of David's friend Constace suffocated in a handcuffed and plastic bag wearing a hood, and Betsy concludes that Constace committed suicide by simulating the same scene herself, not that David killed him. The second part, the second video, that Betsy found at the residence of another friend of Constace's, chronicles the entire process of Constace's suicide and the face of her friend, who is also an extreme anti-death sentence figure. By the second part, Betsy can't believe what she's seeing, and she runs as hard as she can to save the wronged David, who may also be a martyr in the anti-death penalty movement, and she ultimately fails to save his life in time.
After David's execution, Betsy receives a favorite doll of David's son, which hides a disc, which is also the third part of the video, and here, all the truths surface, inside the video is David's suicide scene in Constas, and David's face appears in the last shot of the video, which shocks people. It turns out that all of it is a game set up by the three of them together, with Constace committing suicide, David in jail as a suspect, and his friend wanted as a fugitive. Betsy had questioned the court trial during the interview, and her questioning was the best reason for David to choose to interview her.
Claire once said that people live for a certain faith. David and Constace lived for their faith, and they gave their lives to test the law to prove the loopholes in the death penalty. They have done many things to save the lives of those who have died, but with little effect and have failed to achieve the purpose of abolishing the death penalty. This movie is shocking, shocking, incredible, but also a challenge to life and power, the film sets up a lot of suspense, full of doubts, the anchorage of the car has long been paved at the beginning of the film, if the car can drive normally, maybe Betsy still has a chance to save David, she races with time, creates a tense atmosphere, when she arrives at the execution site, the director did not directly give the scene when David was executed, and informed the audience in the form of news reports that David has been executed, which further deepens Betsy's despair and helplessness. Overall, the film focuses on the abolition of the death penalty system, reflecting the struggle between people and the system told by David in the Anti-Death Penalty Movement in Texas, where the death penalty was the most common at that time, spacey played the role of David perfectly, and from the cast, the film is also worth watching.