8. Kevin Spacey Frames Himself To Prove The Death Penalty Doesn't Work - The Life of David Gale
The plot twist in The Life of David Gale is a lot easier to explain, though makes just as little sense. Essentially, in order to prove that the death penalty is flawed, Kevin Spacey's character intentionally frames himself for raping and murdering his friend. His methods ensure that his own demise goes ahead because he makes pains to do so; proving the fallibility of capital punishment could have involved providing all the evidence that he was framed to the court, and then being executed anyway. A failure to defend oneself does not dicate a flaw in the death penality; in effect, Spacey's David Gale ends up dying for absolutely no reason. There's an extra kicker, though; when it's revealed that the woman actually killed herself and Gale didn't do it, what evidence was there to suggest that he raped her as well? I don't even want to think about what Gale may have done to plant his seed at the scene in that case, but it's something the film flat-out refuses to engage with despite revealing how his fingerprints were planted at the scene for the murder portion of the crime.