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Freedomland (2005)
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Reviews Counted:146
Fresh:34
Rotten:112
Average Rating:4.6/10
Consensus: Poorly directed and overacted, Freedomland attempts to address sensitive race and class issues but its overzealousness misses the mark.
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Richard Price's novel FREEDOMLAND is brought to life in this 2006 adaptation. A carjacking-turned-kidnapping provides the set-up for a complex story of racial and class divide, as black detective... Richard Price's novel FREEDOMLAND is brought to life in this 2006 adaptation. A carjacking-turned-kidnapping provides the set-up for a complex story of racial and class divide, as black detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) attempts to uncover the truth in victim Brenda Martin's story. Bleeding and dazed in an inner city ER, Brenda (Julianne Moore) explains that on her way home from work in the projects of fictional Dempsey, New Jersey, a black man assaulted her and stole her car. Matters are intensified when it's revealed that her 4-year-old son was asleep in the backseat. Novelist Price (CLOCKERS), who also wrote the screenplay, has never shied away from the blunt realities and moral ambiguities of the contemporary urban experience. Though Price's vision is often unrelentingly bleak, and his characters are far from saintly , there's a weary hopefulness that birddogs them throughout. Stars Jackson and Moore turn in performances as incendiary as the film's subject, and the excellent supporting cast (Edie Falco and Anthony Mackie, among them) tackles these complex characters with both nuance and fire. Director Joe Roth (CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS) is given the monumental task of bringing Price's epic to the screen and his visual approach works well--all cinematic chiaroscuro and icy hues. Still, Price's themes of racial and class tension are rough, murky waters and require both a bold vision and a deft touch. As much as Roth is clearly passionate about the task at hand--setting an emotional fever pitch from the word go--the hopeful resolution he desires is not so easily attained, if attainable at all. FREEDOMLAND is a tough one, and although flawed, in the end, it's an emotionally complex, politically provocative film worth viewing. [More]
Starring: Julianne Moore, Samuel L. Jackson, Edie Falco, William Forsythe
Starring: Julianne Moore, Samuel L. Jackson, Edie Falco, William Forsythe, Ron Eldard, Anthony Mackie, Aunjanue Ellis, Latanya Richardson, Clark Peters, Peter Friedman, Dominick Lombardozzi, Philip Bosco
Director: Joe Roth
Director: Joe Roth
Screenwriter: Richard Price
Producer: Scott Rudin
Composer: James Newton Howard
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Reviews for Freedomland
This mixed-up, self-important thriller is adapted by Richard Price from his own novel and wastes a talented cast.
Freedomland might just play to the MTV generation, but even they'll likely have trouble swallowing this particularly clumsy pill.
Flabby, dull and overlong, it's a B-grade movie with A-list talent and an inflated idea of its own importance. Think Tsotsi crossed with Clockers with the imagination of neither.
Freedomland has an extremely strong opening sequence but its intriguing premise is quickly squandered in favour of overwritten speeches and a series of boring, nonsensical scenes that seem to go nowhere.
"Freedomland" is an infuriating movie made worse by incomprehensible monologues from its deranged protagonist.
As an excuse to examine urban malaise at novel length, this premise works; as a film drama, it feels both overlong and sketchy.
Clunky, disjointed and with a couple of subplots that linger and then vanish.
A compelling, beautifully written and impossible-to-put-down book has been turned into a mediocre film that seems self-important and listless.
An intensely engrossing melodrama, despite its ultimately squandering an opportunity to deliver an emotional payoff.
As I sat there watching the final slow motion image of a young man framed against the flames of a burning refrigerator box I couldn't help but think, "boy, I should have gone and seen Eight Below instead."
Filme triste de temática complexa, surpreende por ter sido dirigido por um cineasta normalmente incompetente e traz performances brilhantes de Jackson e Falco (já Moore, apenas correta, carrega na caracterização).
Freedomland is a drama that plays like an episode of a TV cop show stretched beyond its limits.
Moviemakers who exploit the suffering and death of children to ratchet up the dramatic stakes belong in the innermost circle of hell, but Freedomland -- clumsy and overwrought as it is -- earns the right to its harrowing trajectory.
Richard Price’s dual plot, of the investigation and the escalating racial tensions that surround it, befuddles director Joe Roth from the very start.
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