Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

jfarms1956 I believe that is movie is for those 13 and older. At first I thought the movie was going to be rather dull. After the first 10 minutes or so of the film, I found myself drawn in. My mother always told me that a coin has two sides and here you get to know and understand Leland. The lines of good and bad are mixed into shades of gray. The movie is more thought provoking than entertaining. If you want to be entertained, The United States Of Leland is not for you. However, if you happen to be in the "contemplation of life" mentality, this movie may give you some comfort, sort of a Catcher In the Rye film. Not a classic, but OK. No popcorn here. I give it four thumbs up.

wes-connors "After seemingly ordinary 15-year-old Leland (Ryan Gosling) stuns his quiet suburban community with a chilling crime, he is sent to juvenile hall where he meets Pearl (Don Cheadle), a teacher and aspiring write who dreams of making Leland's compelling story into a book. As Pearl digs deeper into Leland's life and the people caught up in it - his mother (Lena Olin), his famous writer-father (Kevin Spacey), and his troubled girlfriend (Jena Malone) - he uncovers Leland's disturbing motive. The tables soon turn when the enigmatic teen forces Pearl to examine his own morally questionable behavior. Climaxing with a shocking collision of violence, understanding, and hope, Leland will take you to states you never imagined," according to the DVD sleeve description.It starts off with the lead character, Mr. Gosling hazily recalling one of the film's crimes - the killing of "retarded" Michael Welch (as Ryan Pollard), the little brother of his junkie girlfriend Jena Malone (as Becky "Beck" Pollard). Gosling doesn't quite remember committing the crime, although no real sense of mystery abounds. "Sometimes the most important stuff goes away," Gosling explains. In any case, you're correct in suspecting cagey Chris Klein (as Allen Harris) is somehow involved. Apparently, the motive is a combination of mercifully ending sadness and parental neglect. The film is most interesting in drawing parallels between the characters played by Gosling and Mr. Klein, two young men finding love and sex with surrogate families.Both Gosling and Klein are clearly too old for their roles; Gosling is supposed to be 15, and Klein calls a 20-year-old drug dealer an "older guy" (in a brief scene, he looks younger than Klein, who beats him for presumably forcing Ms. Malone to take drugs). Top-billed Don Cheadle (as Pearl Madison) isn't the star; rather, he plays a juvenile prison schoolteacher and a aspiring writer who cheats on his girlfriend. Martin Donovan (as Harry Pollard) and Kevin Spacey (as Albert T. Fitzgerald) make a "good dad"/"bad dad" comparison. Director Matthew Ryan Hoge makes a successful first impression, and much about the film is good - but, very little about it makes any sense. "The United States of Leland" could also say something about the country, or not… ***** The United States of Leland (1/18/03) Matthew Ryan Hoge ~ Ryan Gosling, Chris Klein, Jena Malone, Don Cheadle

uncertain OK, so there's this kid who had a not-so-great life and, like, did this bad thing. He goes to a kiddie-jail and makes friends with his teacher. His teacher does some good things, but he also does some bad thing, too. But not, like, as bad as the things the kid did, but, like, still bad things. And then some, like, stuff happens, and like, you never really find out why. It's there just to be there. Like, the end. Garbage. Total garbage. Anybody who says this is a movie worth watching forgot how to see junk when it's staring them in the face.

Superunknovvn "The United States Of Leland" is one of those movies where you're almost afraid to admit that it did nothing for you. Don't be. How could you feel any other way when the characters keep saying profane things ("there's so much sadness in the world") that are supposed to be really moving and deep.Not only because of the presence of Kevin Spacey and Jena Malone does this movie feel like a mixture of "American Beauty" and "Donnie Darko". In fact, if you took Donnie Darko with his constant blank expression and put him in "American Beauty" this movie would be the outcome. Really, the parallels are stunning and I'm amazed that Kevin Spacey would want to star in a movie that similar again.As in "American Beauty", at the beginning of "Leland" we learn that a murder has happened and the story is being told in retrospect. The line that I quoted above about the sadness in the world is being repeated a few times and it's more than just a little reminiscent of "There's so much beauty in the world" as said in "American Beauty" by annoying-guy-with-a-hat-and-a-camera, another one of those blank faced teenage characters that some people in Hollywood seem to think represents today's youth so poignantly. Hell, the similarities even go as far as both movies referencing the U.S.A in their title.At the end of the day "The United States Of Leland" is nothing but a poor rehash of other movies that weren't that great in the first place. It's trying hard to move you, but fails to do so. Instead the makers annoy with their perception of the problems in modern society. As Denis Leary once put it: "Life sucks, get a f.... helmet!"