AllMovie

The Spiral Road is a path filled with good intentions -- but we all know where good intentions alone can lead. It's actually quite surprising that Spiral is as poor a movie as it is, given that director Robert Mulligan had the same year created the classic To Kill a Mockingbird. But Spiral is everything that Mockingbird is not -- heavy-handed, trite, tedious, and pretentious. An excursion into Heart of Darkness territory, but without the underlying genius, Spiral wears out its welcome early on, but just keeps on going and going, layering stilted dialogue on top of wooden characters and situations which are meant to be dramatic or portentous but come across as old hat and boring. Mulligan's direction is amazingly leaden; one keeps waiting for the film to pick up some steam in some way, but it never really does. Matters are not helped by Rock Hudson's game but doomed performance; he's in over his head here, and try though he might, he sinks quickly. Burl Ives at least adds a little juice with his hammy but enjoyable performance. Gena Rowlands is wasted, and Geoffrey Keen can't do much with his part. Some viewers will find The Spiral Road to have an inspirational message, but others will think that the message isn't worth the almost two-and-a-half hours it takes to be delivered.