Review of Freedomland (2006) by Jim M — 09 Jun 2011

Det. Lorenzo Council's (Samuel L. Jackson) night just got worse. A distaught woman, Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) has arrived at the local hospital claiming her car was stolen with her 4 year old son in the back street. Things go from bad to worse when Brenda's brother Danny (Ron Eldard), also a cop, learns of the boys dissaperance and urges the local police to lockdown the area, a black housing project, a move that does not go over well with the locals. As tension mounts and the project threatens to explode Council races to find the missing boy before things fall apart.

Well acted and well filmed. Unfortunatly this central mystery at the heart of this thriller is lacking*. Jackson is strong as always though I see little point in making his character asthmatic as it never really comes up. Moore has had practice playing the distraught mother before and does so well here. Edie Falco has some good scenes but isn't on screen long enough to make a difference. Eldard and William Forsythe for all the impact their characters have on the story might as well not even be in it. The films biggest flaw is that it trys to do two storylines (missing boy and impending riot motavtied by racial animosity) but does nethier well. The police are heavy handed (really after 24 hours what was the point keeping that apartment building locked down other then pissing people off? The Mayor isn't wondering why all his cops are harassing people rather then A)Comb the nearby woods and neighborhood B)Looking for the stolen vehical C)Stopping one of the myriads of other crimes that are sure to pop up when every crook realize half the police force is tied up keeping people from leaving there homes). The tenants of the projects arn't much better they are allowed 2 moods, chillen and angry. One wonders why if they where so pissed off they didn't raise a fuss with the Mayor/Governor/Congressmen or the NAACP/ACLU/Al Sharpton. Instead they jump right to the riot phase when shooting at the police doesn't work (it rarely does). The mystery fares little better as it soon becomes obvious what happened (even if it takes Jackson longer to realize it then the viewer). The movie follows what appears to be a trend for the last 6 years or so in Hollywood of throwing a young child in perilious circumstances as a cheap and quick way to envoke audience sympathy and involvment (side note, a child in danger also allows the hero to take actions that would normally be looked down apon in order to rescue the child be it torture, theft, manipulation or summary executions). Personaly I would have rather Jackson and Moore both take the backseat and let Edie Falco's character take center stage. Falco plays a mother whos child went missing and has started her own orginization of volunteers to help find other missing children. There's a good story there unfortunatly like so many other movies the good story, the interesting story is shoved aside in favor of the bland story. A decient thriller, but not worth going out of your way for...if you watch it don't think about it too much.

*SPOILER.

It becomes obvious farely quickley that Brenda Martin isn't 100%. She acts crazy enough that Council should have been taking a deeper look at her past history.