"Freedomland" (Sony Pictures)
Good Actors, Bad Movie
“Freedomland” is a movie based on Richard Price’s novel of the same name. It is packed with all the right elements for high intensity entertainment but something goes wrong. While stars Samuel L Jackson and Julianne Moore act their heads off, the movie sinks around them.
The film involves a young mother walking into a hospital emergency room and telling the local police she has been car-jacked. Her four-year-old son was in the car at the time and he is feared dead. She, a Caucasian, also adds that the carjacker was a black man.
Brenda Martin (Moore) tells her story through tears and hysterics. She is thoroughly convincing to police detective Lorenzo Council (Jackson). He immediately knows this allegation of a black on white crime is going to cause trouble at the local housing development where the crime occurred, and it does. While Council is trying to find the perpetrator, and hopefully rescue the young boy, a riot is on the verge of happening at the project.
Everything that should be present in a tense drama is present in this movie. Still nothing works to make it interesting or engrossing. You feel for the mother of the child but then she becomes annoying and seemingly delusional. The police detective has so many problems going on at one time that your attention is scattered by them all.
Plus the supporting characters have no depth. Edie Falco plays a woman named Karen who is helping with the search for Brenda’s son. She has a backstory that involves the loss of a child but the relevance of this isn’t resolved. Then there is Brenda’s brother, played by Ron Eldard. He seems to be a lit fuse that is going to explode at any minute but then he disappears from the scene.
Jackson is an actor of immense talent but he seems to be searching for the core of Lorenzo, and never finds it. He is good in the role but never quite conquers it. The same is true of Julianne Moore. She gives Brenda all the ambiguities the role requires but eventually she is overcome by the limitations of the script. At that point she just starts to babble.
The movie is rated R for profanity and violence.
Even the title of this film is gimmicky as nothing of importance occurs in “Freedomland,” an abandoned school near the place where the incident occurred. It probably just sounded like a way to get people into the theaters.
Do not be fooled by the quality of the actors involved in this movie. They are good, the movie isn’t. In our land of freedom we can choose to ignore bad movies wrapped in the cloak of big name stars. Sit this one out, and wait for Jackson and Moore’s next projects that hopefully will be worthy of their talents.
I scored “Freedomland” an imprisoned 4 out of 10.
