DVD: The United States Of Leland

Title: The United States Of Leland
Director: Matthew Ryan Hoge
Starring: Don Cheadle, Ryan Gosling, Jena Malone, Kevin Spacey
Format: DVD
Production Company: Paramount
Year: 2004

Review: Though only one of the characters in this movie has a heroin problem, as a viewer, you get to witness all of the members of the cast staring into nothingness as if they had just tied one off. The United States Of Leland is a movie about mistakes. Mistakes that are caused consciously by the characters, mistakes that just happen and mistakes in movie-making.

The plot centers around Leland (Ryan Gosling) and his confessed murder of his girlfriend's (Jena Malone) retarded brother Ryan. Leland P. Fitzgerald is an intelligent teenager sporting a vacuous expression which may or may not be because of his alcoholic writer-father's (Kevin Spacey) apathy toward his son's life. When Leland is sent to a juvenile detention center, history teacher and aspiring writer Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle) takes special interest in the boy and tries to get to the bottom of why this seemingly moral and caring child would commit such a horrendous act. Exploration of motive is explored through Leland's own voice-over and flashbacks prompted by a secret journal he keeps while in the detention center.

With an all-star cast and thought provoking plot, The USofL should have been an interesting exercise in philosophical storytelling, but the muddle of moral exploration that is thrown into the plot quickly digs a storied grave that becomes nearly impossible to dig your way out of. First, you have the question of Leland's motivation for murdering his girlfriend's mentally retarded brother. Then (ready for the avalanche of moral conundrums?) Leland's famous and apathetic father comes out of estrangement to take interest in his son's problems which may be genuine or simply fodder for a future novel, Don Cheadle's genuinely interested teacher role is marred by his own desire to exploit Leland's story for a book as well as an infidelity to his out-of-town girlfriend and Leland's girlfriend is slipping dangerously back into her old heroin-addled ways while her sister's relationship with a live-in boyfriend is ravaged by the grief and numbing effects of the murder. If that isn't enough, both families affected by this seemingly meaningless crime are experiencing emotional tremors and outbursts among the parental units. Though each relationship and moral dilemma addressed in this film is moving and alluring, the lens of a movie camera is not wide enough to capture the vague connections of each story to one another. Hoge makes the mistake of portraying each character's unique flaw as the film's pivotal element.

Despite the overly ambitious nature of The United States of Leland, the film's primary mistake comes near the end when too many thinly masked deus ex machinas fall into place to not only provide us with an answer to why Leland chose to murder a child he cared for, but also exact revenge for the actions perpetrated by the characters.

The United States Of Leland is a film that should be seen for the cast's incredible performance and the interesting issues of morality it raises questions to, but you'd do better by enrolling in a class on moral philosophy than accepting the answers offered by the film's denouement.

Worth a rental, but don't expect anyone to keep this movie in front of the television for repeated viewing.

Rating: 2.25 / 5

Buy The United States Of Leland from Amazon.com: Consume.