Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
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Playing the Race Card...with a Sledgehammer:
Freedomland
2-15-06 Knight at the Movies Column*
by Richard Knight, Jr.
Freedomland
2-15-06 Knight at the Movies Column*
by Richard Knight, Jr.
Much Ado About the Same Old Thing
Looking out the window from an upstairs view at the scene of violence below during a tense standoff between a faceless mob of
American-Americans and brutal mostly white riot police, a young man mutters “drama” and rolls his eyes. With this one word and
gesture the actor (who in the next five minutes of screen time will take an even more brutal beating while in the custody of those
white police officers) neatly sums up the effect of director Joe Roth’s racial drama-thriller, Freedomland. There has not been a
racial drama this overblown since Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning or a thriller that fritters away loose ends as quickly as last year’s
dreadful Wicker Park. Neither drama nor thriller, despite the Fuss, leads anywhere.
None of that is apparent within the first twenty minutes. Roth, an extraordinarily successful movie producer but a merely competent
film director, gets things off to a good start for once. During a hot summer night in 1999 in New Jersey, we see a dazed Julianne
Moore appear out of the shadows, stroll past Samuel L. Jackson as a police detective keeping an eye on a passing candlelight vigil
and enter an emergency room where she reveals bloody, swollen hands to the staff and a story about being carjacked by a black
man.
After an interlude in which we are shown that Jackson as Detective Lorenzo Council is the consigliere between the police and a Cabrini-
Green like housing project, Jackson is called in to talk with Moore, as single mother Brenda Martin. When she reveals to Jackson
that her son was asleep in the back seat when her assailant pushed her out of the car, he instantly goes into emergency mode
himself. Dragging Moore into a conscripted office, he grills the evasive Moore about what happened. Roth shoots his two actors with
a hand held camera in the tight space and it's extremely effective and a terrific kick off for the film. But nearly everything that
follows in the clichéd script (based on Richard Price’s equally cliché-ridden book) plunges the film deeper and deeper into a
melodramatic stew of stereotypes until it finally drowns in its own stale juices. The taut thriller opening, it seems, is just a con – a
tease to draw you into a long winded, by the numbers race drama that compared to say, Crash, seems out of date.
This is the kind of movie where the audience keeps asking questions that seem perfectly logical to everyone but the people on the
screen. There’s lots and lots of screaming and violence and ACTING (Moore is given a last act speech to rival Kevin Costner’s in JFK)
but not a lot of common sense. Why doesn’t Jackson immediately ask Moore for a picture of her son? About other relatives or
boyfriends or ANYTHING? Why does Jackson keep losing Moore? Why does he keep bringing her to the projects in the midst of the
tension when she’s the cause of it? How come no one ever thinks to have Moore examined by a psychologist? What’s the deal with
hot head Ron Eldard as Moore’s brother who suddenly drops out of the picture? How come Edie Falco (as the head of a volunteer
group that finds lost kids) sneaks around in her mysterious big red SUV tailing Jackson instead of immediately announcing her
group's willingness to help?
Then there’s Freedomland itself – an abandoned orphanage from the 1950s where Falco thinks Moore’s little boy might be. Did
Moore grow up there? Did Falco? How come no one thinks to look there until days after the kid’s missing? And what’s that Patti
Smith “Easter” album cover doing on the wall of Moore’s apartment? Why is it shown so prominently or did it just catch my eye
because Jackson couldn’t seem to be bothered with finding out much about the psychological character of his obviously messed up
charge. Your average person doesn’t put a poster of a 1978 album cover of a creative rebel like Patti Smith on the wall of their
apartment for the hell of it.
When all the shoutin’s said and done there’s not much mystery here (think back to those bloodied Lady MacBeth hands) and
absolutely zero logic. Worse, with all this ACTING, all those speeches and tears from Jackson and Moore (oh she just sobs and
sobs), ultimately they and the rest of this talented cast are wasted on an overcooked, overstuffed drama that’s just irritating in its
laziness.
This is Roth’s sixth film, his first drama since his debut, Streets of Gold in 1986. He’s also helmed the dreadfully unfunny Christmas
with the Kranks, American Sweethearts, and a couple of other stinkers. By all accounts, he’s a brilliant producer (and has a stunning
resume to back that up) and a very nice guy but as many other film executives have proved (going back to Dore Schary with his
earnest, deadly dull “message” pictures in the early 50s to Lili Fini Zanuck’s leaden Rush), movie directing is for those pesky but
creative types.
Normally, I would point the first finger at the source material – in my opinion that’s where the fault lies 99% of the time. But though
Richard Price is famous for his inflated dramas (both books and screenplays), one need look no further than Spike Lee’s Clockers to
see what a mesmerizing, effective film can be gleaned from Price’s writing when a real director's in charge. I think Joe Roth did an
average job directing a film made from material that required expert handling. It’s going to sharply divide critics (some will find it an
“honest” examination of this cancer on our culture, some will find it a Big, Loud, Bore) and perhaps the same thing would have
proven true if Lee or another director had been handed the reins but at least it would have been enthralling to watch it go down in
flames or scale the heights. Not this same old same old.
*Freedomland screened after my WCT deadline but in time for me to include it here. My print column for this week instead focused
on my Winter 2006 DVD roundup and can be found online here and at www.windycitytimes.com.
American-Americans and brutal mostly white riot police, a young man mutters “drama” and rolls his eyes. With this one word and
gesture the actor (who in the next five minutes of screen time will take an even more brutal beating while in the custody of those
white police officers) neatly sums up the effect of director Joe Roth’s racial drama-thriller, Freedomland. There has not been a
racial drama this overblown since Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning or a thriller that fritters away loose ends as quickly as last year’s
dreadful Wicker Park. Neither drama nor thriller, despite the Fuss, leads anywhere.
None of that is apparent within the first twenty minutes. Roth, an extraordinarily successful movie producer but a merely competent
film director, gets things off to a good start for once. During a hot summer night in 1999 in New Jersey, we see a dazed Julianne
Moore appear out of the shadows, stroll past Samuel L. Jackson as a police detective keeping an eye on a passing candlelight vigil
and enter an emergency room where she reveals bloody, swollen hands to the staff and a story about being carjacked by a black
man.
After an interlude in which we are shown that Jackson as Detective Lorenzo Council is the consigliere between the police and a Cabrini-
Green like housing project, Jackson is called in to talk with Moore, as single mother Brenda Martin. When she reveals to Jackson
that her son was asleep in the back seat when her assailant pushed her out of the car, he instantly goes into emergency mode
himself. Dragging Moore into a conscripted office, he grills the evasive Moore about what happened. Roth shoots his two actors with
a hand held camera in the tight space and it's extremely effective and a terrific kick off for the film. But nearly everything that
follows in the clichéd script (based on Richard Price’s equally cliché-ridden book) plunges the film deeper and deeper into a
melodramatic stew of stereotypes until it finally drowns in its own stale juices. The taut thriller opening, it seems, is just a con – a
tease to draw you into a long winded, by the numbers race drama that compared to say, Crash, seems out of date.
This is the kind of movie where the audience keeps asking questions that seem perfectly logical to everyone but the people on the
screen. There’s lots and lots of screaming and violence and ACTING (Moore is given a last act speech to rival Kevin Costner’s in JFK)
but not a lot of common sense. Why doesn’t Jackson immediately ask Moore for a picture of her son? About other relatives or
boyfriends or ANYTHING? Why does Jackson keep losing Moore? Why does he keep bringing her to the projects in the midst of the
tension when she’s the cause of it? How come no one ever thinks to have Moore examined by a psychologist? What’s the deal with
hot head Ron Eldard as Moore’s brother who suddenly drops out of the picture? How come Edie Falco (as the head of a volunteer
group that finds lost kids) sneaks around in her mysterious big red SUV tailing Jackson instead of immediately announcing her
group's willingness to help?
Then there’s Freedomland itself – an abandoned orphanage from the 1950s where Falco thinks Moore’s little boy might be. Did
Moore grow up there? Did Falco? How come no one thinks to look there until days after the kid’s missing? And what’s that Patti
Smith “Easter” album cover doing on the wall of Moore’s apartment? Why is it shown so prominently or did it just catch my eye
because Jackson couldn’t seem to be bothered with finding out much about the psychological character of his obviously messed up
charge. Your average person doesn’t put a poster of a 1978 album cover of a creative rebel like Patti Smith on the wall of their
apartment for the hell of it.
When all the shoutin’s said and done there’s not much mystery here (think back to those bloodied Lady MacBeth hands) and
absolutely zero logic. Worse, with all this ACTING, all those speeches and tears from Jackson and Moore (oh she just sobs and
sobs), ultimately they and the rest of this talented cast are wasted on an overcooked, overstuffed drama that’s just irritating in its
laziness.
This is Roth’s sixth film, his first drama since his debut, Streets of Gold in 1986. He’s also helmed the dreadfully unfunny Christmas
with the Kranks, American Sweethearts, and a couple of other stinkers. By all accounts, he’s a brilliant producer (and has a stunning
resume to back that up) and a very nice guy but as many other film executives have proved (going back to Dore Schary with his
earnest, deadly dull “message” pictures in the early 50s to Lili Fini Zanuck’s leaden Rush), movie directing is for those pesky but
creative types.
Normally, I would point the first finger at the source material – in my opinion that’s where the fault lies 99% of the time. But though
Richard Price is famous for his inflated dramas (both books and screenplays), one need look no further than Spike Lee’s Clockers to
see what a mesmerizing, effective film can be gleaned from Price’s writing when a real director's in charge. I think Joe Roth did an
average job directing a film made from material that required expert handling. It’s going to sharply divide critics (some will find it an
“honest” examination of this cancer on our culture, some will find it a Big, Loud, Bore) and perhaps the same thing would have
proven true if Lee or another director had been handed the reins but at least it would have been enthralling to watch it go down in
flames or scale the heights. Not this same old same old.
*Freedomland screened after my WCT deadline but in time for me to include it here. My print column for this week instead focused
on my Winter 2006 DVD roundup and can be found online here and at www.windycitytimes.com.