THE Life Of David Gale has a novel premise a dedicated campaigner against the death penalty ends up on death row himself.

It should be the basis for a tense and thought provoking thriller. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite come up to the mark.

Campaigning journalist Bitsey Bloom (Winslet) has been given the assignment of her life to go to a prison near Austin, Texas, to interview the most famous person on death row, David Gale (Spacey).

Gale, a university professor, is awaiting execution for the rape and murder of colleague and fellow campaigner Constance Harraway (Linney).

He claims he is innocent and gives Bitsey a blow by blow account of the incidents that led to Constance's death.

At first, Bitsey struggles to believe Gale's story. But as he furnishes her with more facts, the reporter turns detective and carries out her own investigation.

And it's not long before she is in a race against time to prove Gale's innocence before his appointment with a lethal injection.

And so the film is set up for an exciting rollercoaster ride. It begins interestingly enough Bitsey running from a broken down car with a package in her hand to make us wonder what the hell is going on and the framework of the interview sessions and the story told in flashback works well.

But the film is tension free and it's early promise lapses into disappointment.

It should have delivered. The storyline is relevant and has enough potential for drama and debate. The director has a proven track record (he covered controversial political ground with the likes of Mississippi Burning). And look at those lead actors.

So what went wrong? Well, for a start, the pace of the film is uneven the flow and the rhythm, as the story goes from interview to flashback to Bitsey's research, is jerky and does not help in creating the sense of urgency and suspense it so cries out for.

And when the climactic revelation is set before us we are treated to not one twist, but two the audience is probably past caring.

All this is not helped by a miscast Winslet, who doesn't seem to be up to the weight of the story and it is difficult to take her seriously (particularly as she is playing a character with such a stupid name).

Spacey is OK, but generally appears to be sleepwalking through his performance and does not entirely convince us that he is days away from execution. It is Linney who holds the acting end up, and injects dignity and compassion into her role and consequently her character is the one the audience is going to have the most sympathy with.

The Life Of David Gale is not by any means a bad film. There is much in it that is worthy and watchable, and any movie that generates intelligent discussion about a controversial subject is commendable.

But it could have been so much better and the feeling of an unfulfilled promise is hard to forgive.

Rating: 6 out of 10