Freedomland

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: December 23rd, 2005 (NY/LA); January 13th, 2006 (wide)

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson (Lorenzo Council), Julianne Moore (Brenda Martin), Edie Falco (Jesse Haus), Ron Eldard, William Forsythe, Anthony Mackie, Aunjanue Ellis

Director: Joe Roth (Christmas with the Kranks, America's Sweethearts)

Screenwriter: Richard Price (Clockers; cowriter of Shaft, Ransom, The Color of Money, Sea of Love)

Based Upon: The 1998 novel of the same title by Richard Price, which was loosely based on the true story of Susan Smith.

Premise: When her daughter disappears and is believed to be dead, a single mother blames an African-American man from the projects for the kidnapping, creating a racial controversy. An African-American detective (Freeman) and a white newspaper reporter team up to investigate the case, which they discover may be more complicated than they expected...

[hedwig]

whoa. fuck that diretor's résumé, i'm still definitely seeing this

[I Don't Believe in Beatles]

An African-American detective (Freeman)

Haha, shouldn't that say Jackson?

[Tictacbk]

are those trailer links dead for anyone else or is my quicktime messed up?

[matt35mm]

Are you on a Mac?  You need Quicktime 7 and unless you have the newer OS, you can't get it.  It's frustrating.  I'll be forced to upgrade soon.

[MacGuffin]

are those trailer links dead for anyone else...?

Yes. It's the new High-Def trailers at Apple that, as matt explained, you need to get upgrades for.

[Gamblour.]

Freedomland? People will mistake this for a expose on either America or Iraq.

[killafilm]

Meh...

[MacGuffin]

This film could have benefitted with a better director. In fact, if Spike Lee had taken it on, it would have been a nice companion piece to Clockers. Richard Price's story and script is a great, timely premise about how White kidnappings attract extreme coverage (think Natalie Halloway), but Black kids missing get no attention, and what all this does to the community. The problem, though, comes from the mishandling of scenes and how information comes across, which makes the material feel like it was hard to juggle. Then there's the secondary characters/cops that play it like rejects from NYPD Blue.

But the saving grace is in the second part of the film; after the trip to Freedomland, especially two scenes in particular. The 'Just nod your head' scene and the interrogation scene. The actors shine in these, and are rightfully given the focus needed to just act and convey Price's words. Edie Falco commands the screen in a one, unbroken take in trying to bring out a confession. And Roth does the smart thing in letting Moore explain everything instead of showing it. If the opening had been stripped down to scenes like this, it might have made for a more complete film, but then would have lost all the appealing complexity.