Melissa Eisele
Pulse Reporter
"Freedomland" moves sluggishly along with the ugly face of racism as its motivating force.
Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) is an ex-drug addict with a 4 year-old son. When her car is hijacked in the predominately black neighborhood she works in, she accuses a black man of being the culprit, but Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson), the cop assigned to get her story, finds too many holes in her story to believe it to be true.
In the mean time, the black community is beginning to erupt as white cops from the next town where Brenda lives put the projects under lockdown. As tempers flare, Council knows that the neighborhood will explode into a riot unless he can figure out what really happened.
If this seems familiar, it should. In the fall of 1994, Susan Smith, a white mother of two young boys, claimed that a black man had hijacked her car with her sons in it. In reality, she had plunged her into a car into a lake and let her sons die. While this story isn't the complete retelling of that story, it comes too close for comfort.
Furthermore, "Freedomland" will disappoint the viewer that thought the previews portrayed a thriller. This film meandered along at a crawling pace until it reached the end. It had few, if any, twists and turns, and the average audience member will be able to figure out what the endgame of the movie is before making it a quarter of the way through the movie.
The primary cast of "Freedomland" did nothing to help this mediocre film. Most of the time, it feels as though the actors were just spitting out their characters' lines, praying that they would exude the right emotion.
Jackson seems constant in his portrayal of this officer, which isn't necessarily a good thing. His consistency came off more as stoicism. As a viewer, it was hard to understand him.
Moore does a great job of playing a wacko. Everything from her constant dazed look to her childish, baby-doll tone was spot on for the character she was playing. But like Jackson, an indeterminate something is missing in her performance.
It is really the supporting cast that deserves some recognition for their roll in this film. Most of them portray the angry black tenants of the projects. Their united performance feels like the heartbeat of angry mob ready to strike, and they are justified in that.
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore and Edie Falco
Directed by: Joe Roth
Running time: 112 minutes
Rating: R
2 Gus heads out of 4
