Minds lost over teenage murderer

"The United States of Leland" has a difficult story to tell, but first-time director Matthew Ryan Hoge tries so hard to be nice to all his characters and be on everyone's side that the message becomes murky and diluted. Here's a movie in which no one is hateable, not even Leland P. Fitzgerald, a 17-year-old boy arrested for murdering the mentally handicapped younger brother of his girlfriend. From start to finish, "The United States of Leland" softly tiptoes around Leland and everyone else. What in another movie would have been turned into an angry, fist-raising tragedy is portrayed here curiously in peaceful colors. Leland (excellently played by Ryan Gosling) himself is like that: a calm, emotional flatliner. Asked why he did it, he finally says, in his sweet, soft-spoken way, "because of the sadness."

Hoge worked as a teacher in a correctional institute for teenagers before writing the screenplay, which explains why the story grows distinctly closer to Leland after he has committed the crime and is imprisoned. The early scenes of Leland in his suburban home or when he's hanging out with girlfriend Becky (Jean Malone) tend to lag and lose momentum, but once Leland is incarcerated, the frames become tighter, more focused and charged with quiet energy.

Hoge's knowledge about the routines and customs inside the institute, his insights on the behavior of inmates are what give the story a gritty authenticity. Hoge knows the most brutal murderers come off as mild, "normal" people, and he inserts effective details to show this. Leland and a fellow prisoner (who's black) call each other "Devil Worshipper" and "Black Demon-Lover" in cheerful, boyish voices between classes. They are extraordinary in their ordinariness, and the sight of them playing basketball in their prison uniforms (color-coded according to the gravity of their crimes) under a brilliant blue sky speaks much more than the flashbacks of Leyland's attack on the younger boy.