Freedomland (DVD)

A white woman staggers into a New Jersey hospital, bleeding and disoriented. She claims to have been carjacked by an African-American man. When she finally reveals her four year-old son was in the car at the time, the police leap into action. Detective Lorenzo Council is assigned to the case and launches a country-wide search for the missing boy. The accompanying media frenzy threatens to ignite a race war in the immediate area. But something doesn't ...
...what.

Director Joe Roth's back-catalogue is hardly auspicious; his last movie was the risible "Christmas with the Kranks". High quality isn't his main preoccupation. "Freedomland" is a messy and confused film that can't decide whether it is a thriller or a treatise on race relations in modern-day America. Roth never satisfactorily intertwines the two plot threads, leading to juddering shifts in tone every time we ... more

A white woman staggers into a New Jersey hospital, bleeding and disoriented. She claims to have been carjacked by an African-American man. When she finally reveals her four year-old son was in the car at the time, the police leap into action. Detective Lorenzo Council is assigned to the case and launches a country-wide search for the missing boy. The accompanying media frenzy threatens to ignite a race war in the immediate area. But something doesn't ring true in Brenda's story and Lorenzo must find out what.

Director Joe Roth's back-catalogue is hardly auspicious; his last movie was the risible "Christmas with the Kranks". High quality isn't his main preoccupation. "Freedomland" is a messy and confused film that can't decide whether it is a thriller or a treatise on race relations in modern-day America. Roth never satisfactorily intertwines the two plot threads, leading to juddering shifts in tone every time we move from one to the other. As a result it feels like two entirely disconnected films have been stapled together. There are suggestions of other sub-plots that never come to fruition and serve only to irritate the watcher. The pacing throughout is sputters; the film begins in meandering fashion, taking a long time to get to the point. The missing child plotline is frustratingly slow-paced, while the pressure cooker of racial tensions builds and explodes far too quickly. Both issues are dealt with separately and it is difficult to reconcile the two. The movie feels flabby at nearly two hours in length and you can't help but wish the director would just get on with it.

The same physical lack of focus that plagues the opening shots continues through the film visually and thematically. Roth may be trying to be arty with his fuzzy pull focus shots, but it feels more like he needs to check his contact lens prescription because he uses the device so often. He doesn't seem to know what to make of his characters and this translates into unfocussed performances from his cast. He pre-empts virtually every revelation from the word go and this means you can see where the story is going from the start. One of the opening sequences features Julianne Moore's character crossing the paths of both Lorenzo and a group dedicated to finding lost children. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they'll all meet later on. His treatment of the racial disharmony within the community is clumsy and overly simplistic, boiled down to a couple of clunky monologues. The police brutality that appears feels like it has come straight from a 1980s' cop show. Roth's visual style is utterly unoriginal; using child apparitions and cheesy cross fades to make you doubt Brenda's sanity. Everything is shot with juddery hand-held camera in a poor attempt at realism. The harsh lighting gives everything a sickly cast intended to unsettle the viewer. But it's all been done before and makes it feel more like a TV movie than a big screen outing.

Considering that the screenplay is based on screenwriter Richard Price's own novel, it is a dreadful adaptation. The characterisation is basic to say the least and none of the players develop as the film moves on, leaving them feeling two dimensional. It is very hard to follow their thought processes, so when Lorenzo embarks on a monologue about the evils of the world, it comes as if from nowhere. The plot is also difficult to follow because two stories are running in tandem and Price fails to connect them in a satisfactory manner. The call for racial harmony is undermined by turgid moralising, clumsily delivered in monologue. The dialogue feels awkward throughout. Lorenzo's jive talking is a poor facsimile of the language spoken in the largely black housing projects. It never feels realistic because it is interspersed with his long, meandering addresses on the state of the world. And the use of the word "motherf***er" is never justified. It's almost as if the character feels like he has to talk down to those of his own race. The part of Brenda bears no resemblance to anyone suffering from grief-induced psychosis. Price appears to have bundled together a disparate group of symptoms that don't add up. No wonder the detective can't figure out what's going on and has to resort to mental torture at an abandoned children's home to get her to talk.

As community cop Lorenzo Council, Samuel L Jackson once more puts on his world-weary face and sleepwalks through a role that is clearly beneath him. He gives a consistent but predictable turn as a man caught in the crossfire of racial disharmony. He does all the things he does in all of his performances; he's steadfast, savvy, belligerent and treats everyone to a monologue on the topic of the day. It's a sad turn of events for a former Oscar-nominee.

Julianne Moore is an actress generally noted for her subtlety and range. However her considerable talents appear to have deserted her in this stinker of a performance as grieving mother Brenda Martin. The problem is that she is playing mad. She seems to have no understanding of the character, failing to connect with her on any meaningful level. As a result, her performance is superficial and utterly unconvincing. It is the worst kind of melodramatic over-acting that is frankly embarrassing to watch. Also because she generally plays controlled, high status characters, it is nigh on impossible to believe her as an underclass ex-junkie. Simply scraping off the make-up and staring into the middle distance doesn't cut it. It's especially annoying because her bizarre behaviour immediately tips you off that something decidedly fishy is going on.

Edie Falco gives a determined and committed performance as would-be child finder Karen Collucci. Her intensity is somewhat disturbing, but it suits the intensity of the character. Ron Eldard is also a touch frightening as Brenda's racist policeman brother; giving more to the part than it deserves. William Forsythe is good value as Lorenzo's sidekick Boyle because he has enough chutzpah to carry off the hard-bitten cop routine.

James Newton Howard's score is one of the laziest soundtrack compositions I have heard for some time. It feels like something he knocked out on his lunch-break. Like the rest of the film it lacks consistency; segueing from piano melodies and rising strings to thumping guitars and drums with little regard for continuity. His use of electronic music quickly begins to grate thanks to repetitive piano and drum machine breaks. The main problem is that he doesn't know when to stop; slapping spooky strings and chimes all over everything.

"Freedomland" is an extremely poor quality movie that has little to recommend it. The acting is terrible, the direction hackneyed, the writing sub-par and the emotional impact non-existent. I'm appalled that it managed to get funding and attract such high quality headliners, only to squander their talent. It's dross that doesn't deserve to be watched unless you want to know how close to the bottom of the barrel Samuel L Jackson's career is.
 

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