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Freedom-land
Directed by: Joe Roth
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson
Genre:
Drama
Run Time: 113
min.
Release Date:
February 2006
On The Web:
Official
Site
Teaser:
Movie Trailer
Reviewed by
Byron Merritt |
I've got a headache...
How ...when ...who is responsible for this ridiculous movie! The fact
that this film actually got made should leave little doubt in the
viewers' minds that someone, somewhere in Hollywood has their head so
far up their ass they wouldn't know a good script if it landed on their
shit-smeared face.
That respectable actors Julianne Moore (CHILDREN
OF MEN) and Samuel L. Jackson (THE INCREDIBLES) signed up
for this trite contraption should also leave viewers scratching their
heads (although Jackson recently did SNAKES ON A PLANE, which further
puts his stardom in question)! The movie's premise: Brenda Martin
(Moore) enters an emergency room in northern New Jersey claiming she's
been carjacked. It just so happens, too, that the guy who carjacked her
was black and this theft occurred in the Armstrong District, a
predominantly black area. Lorenzo Council (Jackson) goes to the ER to
get a statement and Ms. Martin drops a bombshell: her four-year-old son,
Cody, was in the backseat when it was stolen. To add further fuel to
this fizzling fire is the fact that Ms. Martin's brother, Danny (Ron Eldard,
BLACK HAWK DOWN) is a cop on the local police force.
The Armstrong District is sealed off, igniting racial tensions between
the black community and the mostly white police presence. "Why haven't
we seen this kind of response whenever a black kid goes missing?" is the
commonly heard racial cliché.
As the story progresses we learn that Brenda Martin isn't all she seems
to be (shock!) Could she be responsible for her own son's death? This is
old material covered many times. And this time it's done so poorly it's
laughable. Samuel L. Jackson's cop character is initially introduced as
a sickly detective with poor asthma control. We see him get adrenaline
shots and use his inhalers ...and then he's fine for the rest of the
film. Why even introduce this rubbish if you're not going to use it
later on? Julianne Moore stumbles through scenes like a crack-ho looking
for her pipe. She's a lovable mommy one minute and a raving psycho the
next.
The rest of the story has so many holes as to be compared with swiss
cheese. Freedomland itself is an old children's detention center fallen
into ruin where a search for Cody takes place. But it has absolutely
nothing to do with the main story (which is about racial tensions and
false accusations). A woman who is involved in finding missing children
suddenly pops up and assists Jackson but she's more of a psychoanalyst
than a finder of lost kids. Why?! Couldn't Samuel L. Jackson have gotten
that information out of her?! This stupid, ludicrous, and mind-numbing
film should be avoided like the blight it is.
I need some Tylenol!
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Image from Freedomland
DVD cost: $15.99
Purchase:
BestPrices.com
Film Review Stew
Favorite? No.
Stew Poo-Poo?
Yes.
Newsworthy:
Before principal
photography began on Freedomland in late March 2005, director Roth,
producer Rudin and their production team scouted every low income
housing project in the New York/New Jersey area in order to find the
right location for the film's Armstrong Houses, where much of the story
takes place.
Movie Quote: "We
are gonna shut this place down until someone gives him up."
Other Actors/Actresses
from Freedomland
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