Freedomland

Based on Richard Price's novel about social tensions arising from a white woman's explosive accusation that her child has been kidnapped by an African-American carjacker, Freedomland is loaded with good intentions, but goes very wrong despite the presence of two formidable stars—Julianne Moore as the injured, shell-shocked woman who levels the charge, and Samuel L. Jackson as the detective caught between his professional duty and the black community as he tries to find her son before a race riot breaks out. The premise sounds like the basis for an hour-long episode of some network police procedural (Edie Falco, of The Sopranos, is also on hand as a local activist who heads a group that searches for lost children), but director Joe Roth strains mightily to give it greater depth. Unfortunately, the intimate scenes lack subtlety, going too often for the emotional jugular, while the crowd sequences are curiously small-scaled and anemic. Worse, the script has a penchant for inserting Big Speeches into the action on the slightest pretext, which stop the movie dead in its tracks. While the overriding message—the only way to eradicate racism is for good people of all backgrounds to work together—is admirable, it's been conveyed far more effectively in other films. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)