Freedomland

Introduction

When Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) walks into a hospital ER with badly damaged hands and in a state of distress, claiming to be the victim of a carjacking, the police are called and detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) is the first to attend. She tells him that her 4 year old son was in the car but, when pressed, reveals that he was asleep in the backseat when it was taken in the woods.

To complicate matters, the woods she was driving through are next to the predominantly black Armstrong housing project in which she works at a day care centre and she tells Lorenzo that the perpetrator was an African American.

The scale of the police investigation and the vague, stereotypical description of the assailant raises tensions among the black community, who see it as disproportionate compared to resources spent on black kidnap and murder victims.

Meanwhile Council becomes suspicious of Brenda's account of events and seeks help from Karen (Edie Falco), the leader of a support group for parents whose children have been abducted, abused or murdered.

Video

The picture quality is, for the most part, excellent, with superb contrast, but some scenes are a little noisy. Skin tones are reassuringly realistic, with Julianne Moore's blotchy face and red eyes telling so much about the character and background scenery looks sharp, with good colour.

*The pictures contained in this review are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect the image quality of the disc.*

Audio

I didn't listen to the Dolby Digital 5.1 Czech or Polish soundtracks, nor the TrueHD 5.1 Italian or French options, sticking instead to the TrueHD 5.1 English, which is crystal clear. The surrounds are used sparingly, but effectively.

There are myriad subtitling options available - I only sampled the English, which was faultless.

Extra Features

In Adapting Himself - Writing Freedomland, Richard Price talks about adapting his book into a screenplay - you'd never have guessed from the title, would you? It's a reasonably interesting piece about the subject and Price is a decent speaker and he keeps your attention.

Race on the Job talks to real cops about the problems that race plays in their jobs.

The Look of Freedomland is a 12 minute piece about the process of developing the visual style of the film with contributions from, amongst others, the set decorator, production designer and location scout.

Deleted Scene: You Can't Hit Her - deleted for good reason as it isn't a particularly involving scene, nor is it overly pertinent to the plot.

Trailers for Men In Black, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 30th Anniversary Edition, Surf's Up and the 'Coming to Blu-ray' promotional ad.

All of these extras are presented in 480p SD.

Conclusion

Richard Price, best known for writing Clockers, adapted the screenplay for Freedomland from his own book, while Joe Roth directed. Roth is perhaps an odd choice to helm the project, with his other films including Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, America's Sweethearts and Christmas with the Kranks.

I haven't read Price's book, so I don't know whether it's a problem with the source material, or Roth's direction, but Freedomland just doesn't gel. On the one hand it's a hard-hitting drama about a mother's grief and on the other it's a tale of racial tension between residents and police (and within the police) in two New Jersey districts. The two stories are meant to interlink, but just clash and get in each other's way - especially the angry black preacher who just seems to appear, shout, exacerbate matters and then disappear.

Maybe this works fine in print, but I would have much preferred the film to have stuck with Brenda's story and the investigation into her missing son, rather than muddy the waters and distract itself with Lorenzo's loyalty dilemma.

Both Julianne Moore and Samuel L. Jackson put in admirable performances, but the film just doesn't work. There are some interesting scenes and fine interplay between Moore, Jackson and Falco but any tension just fizzles out when Roth moves away from the investigation and into the New Jersey districts.