Gospel Hill tells the intersecting story of two men in the fictional South Carolina town of Julia. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of a slain civil rights activist. Jack Herrod (Tom Bower) is the former sheriff who never got to the bottom of the murder. Their paths begin to cross when a development corporation comes to town with plans to raze Julia's historic Gospel Hill.
So completely lacking in his eye for revealing detail and his ear for colloquial speech that it feels less like a movie than an incomplete first draft of a well-meaning if unsophisticated essay.
– Stephen Holden,
New York Times,
28 Aug 2009
rotten:
It's a familiar formula: Greedy suits touting high-rise schematics and targeting blue-collar citizens end up locking horns with a local firebrand. Guess who wins?
– S. James Snyder,
Time Out New York,
26 Aug 2009
rotten:
The potentially thought-provoking concept of historical reconciliation is ill served by a half-baked script that reduces every cliched plot point to jaw-dropping levels of preachiness.