CORPORATE LINE: Late one night in a working class New Jersey suburb, a bloodied woman staggers mute and dazed into the emergency room at the Dempsy Medical Center.
After treatment for shock and hysteria, Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) recounts to Dempsy police detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) — a horrific tale of being carjacked on the isolated strip of undeveloped land that divides Dempsy’s urban housing projects from the blue collar town of Gannon, where she lives. She claims she was forced out of her car by a black man, but during the interrogation Council senses he’s not getting the whole story. Only after hours of questioning does Brenda finally break down and confess that her fouryear-old son, Cody, was asleep in the back seat of the stolen car.
Led by activist Karen Collucci (Edie Falco), members of the communities of Dempsy and Gannon unite in a search for the missing child, but the criminal investigation into the alleged kidnapping by a suspect who is presumed to be a local from the projects soon ignites long-simmering racial tensions between the two towns.
THE REVIEW: Freedomland is a disaster. Even the film’s strong suit, the casting, is a mess. Julianne Moore’s attempt at acting couldn’t be any worse. Moore is regressing as an actress. Samuel L. Jackson is just collecting checks at this point. He gives his character no effort or emotion. Edie Falco is the only one that shows up to make a movie. Falco is first rate and it’s a shame she has to suffer in such a bad film with actors phoning it in.
Freedomland opens and never gets a firm hold on keeping the audience interested. Director Joe Roth offers up a movie that attempts to put us in the film with a moving camera that only makes you feel nauseous. Roth’s direction adds more chaos to a film that needed more direction. Roth was attempts to make a film on race and ended up making a film without a clear direction.
FRANKLY: Juliana Moore is the worst actress in Hollywood. She single-handedly ruins Freedomland. As good as Edie Falco is she can’t make up for the train wreck that is Juliana Moore or the sleepwalker that is Samuel L. Jackson.
+ Charlie Craine
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