Critic Reviews

The Land won’t win any awards for originality of premise. And the movie, after that premise comes into play, tends to meander more than a suspense story ought to. It meanders for the best reason, though, which is to help the viewer get to know the characters.

It isn’t the gritty, realistic portrayal of life on the streets that Caple might have been going for — he’s too poetic a filmmaker for that — but it lends shape and color to a truth that too many inner-city kids know too well: It doesn’t matter if you care about the future. The future doesn’t give a shit about you.

The violence, when it comes, is ugly and tragic, as it should be — The Land makes no promises about glory. But the hangout moments fizz with the boys' likable chemistry, and the scenes of suspense, which pick up toward the end, are always arresting and mostly understated, scored to nervous breathing and the ambient bustle of streets at night.

Writer-director Steven Caple Jr.'s social-realist tendencies run up against some unconvincing genre elements.

The Cleveland locations — along with some memorable visual flourishes via skateboard tricks — show that Caple has a unique eye and a strong sense of place. Here’s hoping that next time he applies them to a fresher story.

As if to personify the movie’s whiplash-inducing split between gloss and grit, the singer Erykah Badu appears as a prostitute — and also contributes a duet with Nas, one of the executive producers, to the soundtrack.

The Land feels a few drafts away from succeeding on its own terms. Still, there’s enough on screen, beyond Lendeborg’s confident star turn, to label Caple as a filmmaker to watch.

The Land isn’t a perfect film, but it is a hell of a good start, and director Caple Jr. – and his young cast – are artists to keep an eye on, for sure.

There are sequences of the four prowling the streets on their boards with a fatalist, sinister beauty that show Caple Jr is more than capable of crafting striking compositions. Unfortunately, the jump from image-making to storytelling in this case fails to stick the landing.

The film is well-intentioned but dramatically unconvincing, full of clichéd situations and on-the-nose dialogue about kids getting their shot and living their dream.