Freedomland is one of the worst films I've seen in years, despite having a star studded cast in Julianne Moore and Samuel L Jackson. The premise of the film, the plot vehicles, the characters and the storyline all fall flat, with the first twenty minutes revealing exactly how the rest of the film is going to go. There are no surprises in this film, and Julianne Moore's work on this film comes across as irritating and lame.
The story of Freedomland is simple: a woman with questionable mental faculties claims to be carjacked by a black man in the inner city and the police from two towns go nuts when they realize that a young boy was in the vehicle. Thus begins a wild goose chase for the boy as Samuel L Jackson tries to figure out whether this lady is telling the whole truth and whether or not the boy is even alive.
Adding to the mess is this convoluted story element where the police from two towns lock down an inner city neighborhood as they hunt for the child. The police keep these people in their neighborhood like animals and racial tensions rise as people grow angry over being mistreated because of "some white kid and a crazy white lady" who they know in their heart of hearts hasn't been telling the truth.
Freedomland tries to play up every stereotypical racial conflict with very little success: The police simply lock the neighborhood down and there are no consequences; everything from illegal imprisonment, civil rights violations, police brutality and racial profiling are played out but in a way that just isn't realistic in this day and age. For example, a black man is beaten openly in front of Jackson and cops from the other town as well as two witnesses with no effect. There's no consequence to it: no investigation, no one getting suspended, etc. It's a ridiculous story that just isn't believable. Even more ridiculous are the police locking down this neighborhood: Where are the authorities or the press in the film talking about this mess and pointing out that this is highly illegal? In this film they don't exists. There's a scene where William Forsythe (who plays he partner of Jackson) says that the Feds want to take over the case. But with all the civil unrest and violence against civilians wouldn't the FBI want to be conducting a different kind of investigation? (civil rights do still exist in this country the last time I checked). And if you think that is ridiculous, Moore's character is even crazier. She wanders in and out of coherency with the subtlety of Charles Mansion and you know that Jackson's character doesn't believe her at all - and yet he tends to her like a shepherd with a baby lamb.
And that's not even the half of it - Jackson's character is even more uneven; they portray him as tough and caring when it comes to his inner city roots but he watches from the sidelines as all hell breaks loose .. and in the end even his people turn on him. The whole film is a waste opf good talent in Jackson, Moore and Edie Falco who plays the leader of a Missing Children's group.
Freedomland is just an awful film with a predictable plot, stereotypical plot vehicles and characters and situations that are just loathsome. What's worse is that as a DVD there's absolutely no extras. All you get is the film and 10 second trailers for a bunch of other films. If you can help it just skip this movie all together - it's just not worth wasting two hours of your life for.
