Review of Freedomland (2006) by Christy J — 18 Feb 2007

Joe Roth deserves a medal of honor: somehow, he managed to take a horrible acting job out of Juliane Moore, one of the best actresses today. He's done the same thing to Samuel L. Jackson - in fact, he's done it with every single actor and actrees in [i]Freedomland[/i], the cheap, unconvincing tale of a white woman (Moore) who claims her car was stolen with her 4-year-old son inside by a black man. A detective (Jackson) investigates the case while having to deal with racial discrimination in his neighborhood.

The script, instead of focusing on the racial problem, spotlights Moore's character, a woman troubled with traumas and drug issues. Moore plays it schizofrenicly, never really giving us a chance to believe or even sympathize with the character. Her overacting gives so many clues about the ending that, once an hour and a half is gone, we already know what's gonna happend and we lose interest in the story. To make it all worst, the script makes it all even worst by coming up with an obnoxious, unsatisfying interrogation scene, near the very ending, that is totally mind-numbing.

Not to say it doesn't have anything good on it, photography is really good, and music is intense. But director Roth also wants to make things intense, so he shoots the movie desperately, with a nervous camera and overacting. Things are intense, for sure, but to the point we expect Moore and Jackson to start laughing in the midle of the scenes.

That would have been a much better movie...