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Life & Arts

'Freedomland' cast bails out boring plot

Jackson commands the screen, but cannot control poor script

by SARAH TRESSLER
The Daily Cougar

Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore team up in Freedomland, a thriller about racial tensions in the wake of a missing 4-year-old boy.

The movie starts off at a fast pace with some hard to follow dialogue. Brenda (Julianne Moore) arrives at a hospital, hands bloody from an accident. She is frantic and nearly incoherent as she explains to investigator Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) that she's just been injured in the course of a carjacking. On top of that, her son was asleep in the backseat of the car, which explains her inconsolable state.

An all-out lockdown of the neighborhood where the carjacking occurred is implemented. This neighborhood just happens to be in a poor, predominantly black part of town.

Tenants cry foul and vehemently protest what they believe to be unfair and racially driven measures taken by the police. The protesting eventually escalates into a showdown between police and the black community.

Moore is a drippy, weeping mess for the length of the film. Her character is a former drug addict-turned-school teacher who can't seem to pull herself together enough to tell investigators what they need to know to help her find her son. She also acquires a poor white trash dialect that is unbecoming of the lady who brought some class to porn as Amber Waves in Boogie Nights.

Jackson plays a role typical of his previous characters. Deep, philosophical soliloquies about God, life and what it means to be a parent are punctuated with threatening yet witty remarks to anyone who stands in his way. A better actor couldn't have been cast.

Halfway through, the film threatens to get bogged down in redundant dialogue, longing glances and spats between police and young black men, but a plot twist picks it back up just before I started looking around to see if anyone else in the theater was looking as bored as I felt.

Edie Falco gives a stoic performance as a woman who had her child abducted years ago and now is on a personal vendetta to locate any missing children in the community. She also is the key to finding out where Brenda's son is.

Generally, Freedomland is a thought-provoking film on the race relations, and sincere performances by Falco and Jackson help move boring or confusing parts along.FreedomlandRated: R for language and some violent contentStarring: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne MooreColumbia PicturesVerdict: The muddled plot and sloppy direction wouldn't stand up without the likes of Jackson, Moore and Falco.
 

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