Falco only good reason to visit 'Freedomland'
You know how the city of Niagara Falls is gross, but the falls are so amazing they make the whole thing worth it? I have similar feelings about "Freedomland."
Edie Falco may not be as awe-inspiring as that big cascade of water, but she comes close in her magnetic supporting performance in "Freedomland." Direct and uncluttered, Falco plays Karen, whose child was kidnapped and who has become the leader of a group that searches for missing kids.
Falco does not seem to be doing much, but the instant she appears on-screen, her intensity and focus rivet you. And that focus is put to good use. In two speeches where Karen gradually, almost imperceptibly, shifts the meaning of conversations 180 degrees, Falco just about makes "Freedomland" worth seeing.
Almost. Unfortunately, as good as Falco is in "Freedomland," that's how bad Julianne Moore is, and the movie is about her. Moore is a wonderful, experimental actress, but her performance here is like the place where tics go to exercise, pop uppers and drink coffee. The blame for her overacting probably goes to director Joe Roth, who surveyed the choices Moore gave him and unerringly zeroed in on the showiest, fakest takes.
As a result, there isn't a believable moment in her performance as a suspicious mother (like all of Moore's characters, she is unstable and improbably well-groomed) who touches off race riots when she tells cop Samuel L. Jackson that her son was kidnapped in an all-black housing project.
"Freedomland" would like to be a "Crash"-like, shades-of-gray drama about race, but it's contrived and obvious. From the beginning, it's clear we are supposed to doubt Moore, if for no other reason than she seems to be enjoying her mania. And there's nothing complex about the Jackson character, whose efforts to contain the black-white conflict make for an urban "High Noon" with glocks instead of rifles.
It's all very intense, with the camera flapping around like a flag in the breeze and zeroing in on actors' nostrils. The irony is that all the stuff the movie is whipping itself into a frenzy to show us isn't worth the trouble, but any time the camera calms down to focus on Falco, you don't want to miss a second.
<B>TITLE: </B>"Freedomland"<B>DIRECTOR: </B>Joe Roth<B>CAST: </B>Julianne Moore, Samuel L. Jackson, Edie Falco<B>RATED: </B>R (for very strong language, violence and drug use)<B>GRADE: </B>1½ Stars (on a scale of 5)
