Freedomland (2006)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Bloodied Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) arrives at the emergency room claiming to be a victim of a carjacking in the black neighborhood. Police detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) is assigned the case and she reveals that her son is still in the car. Brenda's brother Danny (Ron Eldard) is a cop from a neighboring town and the outside police force descends on the black town. Soon Lorenzo starts questioning Brenda's story. He recruits Karen Collucci (Edie Falco) and her volunteer group to search for the boy.This tries to be a thriller while tackling some very sensitive racial issues. The problem is that it handles it with no subtlety. It hits the issue with a sledgehammer. There is a good crime mystery here but it gets overwhelmed. It seems like everybody is yelling and nobody is listening. It may be better to introduce Edie Falco earlier in the movie rather than halfway through. It's a frustrating film to watch.

Freedomland (2006): Dir: Joe Roth / Cast: Julianne Moore, Samuel L. Jackson, Edie Falco, Ron Eldard, William Forsythe: Disappointing thriller about freedom of culture. Julianne Moore arrives battered at a hospital and informs a detective that she was carjacked and her four year old son was in the backseat. The fact that the alleged carjacker is black causes racial tension. Starts out fine but loses focus with the whole racial bit. Story never focuses on the issue at hand with the missing child. Instead the screenwriter throws in a racial subplot that not only distracts, but is totally unnecessary. Even the ending is difficult to accept. Director Joe Roth does well with ominous lighting but Moore is intolerable with every whine, moan and shriek. This is unfortunate given that she has done wonderful work in films that highlight her talent with notable roles. Samuel L. Jackson does his best as the detective but the role is subdued within that whole racial subplot that never worked to begin with. Flat supporting work by Edie Falco and Ron Eldard as if their contribution could save this farce. When spectators left the theatre there was more than one individual mocking Moore in her plea filled last scene. That is probably not what the filmmakers intended but it is a good sign of a bad thriller nonetheless. It never remains focused leaving one to wonder if the screenwriter was given too much freedom. Score: 4 / 10

There were a lot of potentially good movies in this. The story of a woman who reports her child kidnapped by a carjacker could have been a good movie. The story of the tense relationship between police and the African American community could have made a good movie. The story of the group who search for missing children could have made a good movie. The story of the police detective whose own son is in jail could have made a good movie. Somehow, though, when you force all of those different stories together you don't come out of it with a good movie. Instead, you come out with a muddle that doesn't really seem sure of where it's going and seems to lack any real sense of focus or purpose.The performances from leads Julianne Moore (as the mother of the missing child) and Samuel L. Jackson (as the police detective) were all right. Neither hurt the movie; neither were outstanding.In the end, the muddled state of the movie becomes very apparent in the last 20-30 minutes. At that point, it seems as if director Joe Roth is having a real dilemma trying to figure out where to end this story. It seems to go through fits and starts making its way to a conclusion, as if at the end of the muddle, it was suddenly necessary to try to tie up loose ends of story lines that frankly weren't all that riveting to begin with and could really have been dispensed with. A part of the movie's problem, I suppose, could have been that it just suffers from the inevitable challenge of turning a novel into a movie. I'll confess that I haven't read the novel. Maybe the muddle seems clearer when it's on paper, when you can rehash things more easily, and of course the written word allows for more detailed explanation of plot points. Still, the novel was adapted for the screen by its own author, Richard Price, who isn't a rookie at writing for the screen either. I would have expected him to do a better job of producing a coherent script that was tight enough to work in a 2 hour movie. (3/10)

I just sat through this film and feel very cheated. I had the task of bringing home a good thriller for my family and they gave up and went to bed 20 minutes in. I decided to watch till the end in hope that I could justify the rental money, unfortunately I lost out.Julian Moore plays a mother who loses her 4 your old son in a car hijacking and the rest of the film deals with her and Samuel L Jackson searching for him in a ghetto with race rioting going on around them. This film frustrated me. The actors didn't have a good rapport and often the story was incoherent. Julian Moore, who I'll admit is already one of my least favorite actresses,manages to look haggard and flaky but her acting is grinding and really annoying. Save yourself an hour and a half of your life and bi-pass this really really bad film