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starring: Ryan Gosling, Don Cheadle, Kevin Spacey, Chris Klein, Jena Malonedirected by: Matthew Ryan Hoge
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9781415700433
Format: Color, NTSC
ISBN: 1415700435
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: September 07, 2004
Running Time: 108 minutes
Sales Rank: 10580
Studio: Paramount
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
The United States of Leland isn't a whodunit. The opening scenes of Matthew Ryan Hoge's unusual murder mystery make it clear that Leland P. Fitzgerald (The Believer's Ryan Gosling) is the killer. But why did he kill? Now that the deed is done, Leland is staying in a detention center. Everybody, but especially new teacher Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), wants to know why he killed the mentally challenged brother of girlfriend Becky (Jena Malone). After all, Leland seemed to genuinely like the kid. Leland is just as confused (and can't remember committing the act), but he reveals more and more clues as he gradually opens up to Pearl. His estranged novelist father Albert (Kevin Spacey), meanwhile, just wants to spin another bestseller out of his son's story. Writer-director Hoge doesn't provide any easy answers in this compelling, complicated look at teenage depression. Featuring music by the Fire Theft's Jeremy Enigk. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Ethics of Pain
The premise is rather simple. A teenager, awkward, introvert and burdened with a sensibility that sears his heart to numbness, commits an inexplicable murder. An atrocious one at that. The victim is his girlfriend's brother, Bryan, who is an 11 year old severely autistic nonentity. The main role of Leland Fitzgerald is interpreted by Ryan Gosling with such compelling anguish that it magnifies the complexity of a fragile spirit to such a degree we cannot psychologize the troubled youth because we ... Read More
Rating:  - United States of Leland
I could not enjoy this movie because my DVD came scratched, and that is one flaw of DVD's: You cannot advance the movie, if you are stuck on a disc scratch.
All in all, we know what is going on, but we are anxious to see things resolved, I have a feeling I missed a lot of that movie.
Rating: - Ryan Gosling is turning out to be a very interesting fellow
Fantastic story rife with sadness, poignancy, and insights. It starts out with you knowing something bad took place and someone's been murdered. I assumed it was going to be some sort of a special case murder and it was. That is how the story begins layering. As you learn who got murdered, who he was attached to, how the murderer fit into the social network of the victim, and gain insights to the murderers background and method of thinking, you become more vested with the film. When the end is reached, ... Read More
Rating: - My 2nd Favorite Movie
I bought this off amazon a few months ago. I saw it before I bought it. It's amazing. It's a little bit sad,depressing, and dark but it's a great movie and gives you a different taste than hollywood has to offer.
Rating: - Entertaining, but meaning unclear
I'm not sure if this was a great movie or not, but I'll say this for it: it certainly held my interest while I was watching it.
There are a lot of wheels spinning in this story at once. There's Leland, the mild mannered 16 year old boy who is in jail for killing a mentally impaired child, there is his teacher, an aspiring writer who thinks that writing a book about Leland might be his big break, there is his father, a famous novelist who hasn't seen his son in years, there is his former girlfriend, ... Read More
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