
A film noir centering around a hard-boiled, stylish kingpin drug dealer, called King David, who returns to his hometown seeking redemption--but ends up only finding violent death. King David's final moments are spent with Paul, an aspiring journalist who knew him for just a few minutes; yet King David would forever more have an impact on Paul's life. Half preacher, half Satan, and all street smarts, King David had recorded the story of his exploits on audiotape, leaving behin... (Full plot summary below)
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A film noir centering around a hard-boiled, stylish kingpin drug dealer, called King David, who returns to his hometown seeking redemption--but ends up only finding violent death. King David's final moments are spent with Paul, an aspiring journalist who knew him for just a few minutes; yet King David would forever more have an impact on Paul's life. Half preacher, half Satan, and all street smarts, King David had recorded the story of his exploits on audiotape, leaving behind an often-poetic sermon on villainy and its consequences. The tapes reveal that the cycle of violence and retribution, which his actions have spawned, has come back to him, full circle, as he suspected they might all along.
Leave your thoughts about Never Die Alone.
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertNever Die Alone is [Dickerson's] best work to date, with the complexity of serious fiction and the nerve to start dark and stay dark, to follow the logic of its story right down to its inevitable end. |
| Nitrate OnlineCynthia FuchsKing's funeral opens Never Die Alone, but his throbbing self-consciousness drives it. |
| New TimesLuke Y. ThompsonThe film has a gritty, grainy look that matches the book's raw texture, and keeps the violence and drug abuse from ever looking slick or appealing. |
| Los Angeles TimesManohla DargisPlayed by DMX in a gravel-pit monotone and a near-total lack of affect, King David cuts an unremittingly tedious swath through Never Die Alone. |
| Palo Alto WeeklyJeanne AufmuthWhat starts as a routine pimp film segues into an exercise in intrigue, thanks to some snappy editing and savvy performances. |
| L.A. WeeklyScott FoundasAn electrifying modern-dress noir, directed by Ernest Dickerson with a tough, terse, unapologetically brutal attitude that evokes the heyday of Sam Fuller and Robert Aldrich. |
| Village VoiceMark HolcombThere's something refreshing about a pulp drama that turns on the notion that redemption is a sucker's fantasy. That knowledge may not have saved Goines, but it informs Dickerson's adaptation and results in stellar neo-noir. |
| Arizona Daily StarPhil VillarrealDMX unleashes the focused, angry dominator routine that has always served as the selling point for his music. |
| Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam ArnoldThe script is tight and well-constructed, director Ernest Dickerson has a feel for film-noir aesthetics, DMX exudes a certain brutish charisma and the movie is as morbidly compelling as a good train wreck. |
| New York TimesElvis MitchellDMX is the perfect actor for this stylized and often satisfying film adaptation of Donald Goines's novel. |