Opening

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Freedomland (2006)

tomatometer

23

Average Rating: 4.6/10
Reviews Counted: 149
Fresh: 35 | Rotten: 114

Poorly directed and overacted, Freedomland attempts to address sensitive race and class issues but its overzealousness misses the mark.

35

Average Rating: 4.8/10
Critic Reviews: 40
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 26

Poorly directed and overacted, Freedomland attempts to address sensitive race and class issues but its overzealousness misses the mark.

audience

31

liked it
Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 100,511

My Rating

Movie Info

Joe Roth directs his adaptation of Richard Price's novel Freedomland from a script by the author. Samuel L. Jackson stars as a police detective who must investigate a distraught woman (Julianne Moore) who claims that her child was kidnapped by a black man. The accusation stirs up much racial animosity in the town. Edie Falco co-stars. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

R,

Mystery & Suspense, Drama

Richard Price

May 30, 2006

$12.3M

Sony Pictures Entertainment - Official Site External Icon

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All Critics (154) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (35) | Rotten (114) | DVD (13)

This mixed-up, self-important thriller is adapted by Richard Price from his own novel and wastes a talented cast.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Moviemakers who exploit the suffering and death of children to ratchet up the dramatic stakes belong in the innermost circle of hell, but Freedomland -- clumsy and overwrought as it is -- earns the right to its harrowing trajectory.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: New York Magazine
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

What begins as a familiar kind of media-circus melodrama ends up being something much more complex and tangled.

February 23, 2006 Full Review Source: New York Observer
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A sometimes heavy-handed urban drama punctuated by some devastatingly effective scenes.

February 21, 2006 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The performances all around are lousy -- histrionic and turgid, a most lethal combination.

February 21, 2006 Full Review Source: Village Voice
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Freedomland is, at best, a noble failure, which leaves the charred aftertaste of a burned opportunity.

February 17, 2006 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A dazzling performance by Julianne Moore, backed by Samuel L. Jackson. A strong supporting performance by Edie Falco. The story is overwrought and uneven, but those performances had me interested from beginning to end.

November 7, 2010 Full Review Source: Laramie Movie Scope
Laramie Movie Scope

Ridiculous

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion
CinePassion

"Freedomland" is an infuriating movie made worse by incomprehensible monologues from its deranged protagonist.

April 20, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com
ColeSmithey.com

As an excuse to examine urban malaise at novel length, this premise works; as a film drama, it feels both overlong and sketchy.

February 13, 2008 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com
eFilmCritic.com

Clunky, disjointed and with a couple of subplots that linger and then vanish.

April 19, 2007 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide
Apollo Guide

A compelling, beautifully written and impossible-to-put-down book has been turned into a mediocre film that seems self-important and listless.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International
Film Journal International

An intensely engrossing melodrama, despite its ultimately squandering an opportunity to deliver an emotional payoff.

February 19, 2007 Full Review Source: Upstage Magazine
Upstage Magazine

As I sat there watching the final slow motion image of a young man framed against the flames of a burning refrigerator box I couldn't help but think, "boy, I should have gone and seen Eight Below instead."

December 13, 2006 Full Review Source: Nolan's Pop Culture Review

Not much of this is new territory, but it can be gripping at times.

October 11, 2006 Full Review Source: Christianity Today
Christianity Today

Filme triste de temática complexa, surpreende por ter sido dirigido por um cineasta normalmente incompetente e traz performances brilhantes de Jackson e Falco (já Moore, apenas correta, carrega na caracterização).

July 7, 2006
Cinema em Cena

Freedomland is a drama that plays like an episode of a TV cop show stretched beyond its limits.

May 25, 2006 Full Review Source: Baltimore City Paper
Baltimore City Paper

Richard Price's dual plot, of the investigation and the escalating racial tensions that surround it, befuddles director Joe Roth from the very start.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review
Sacramento News & Review

Freedomland might just play to the MTV generation, but even they'll likely have trouble swallowing this particularly clumsy pill.

May 6, 2006 Full Review Source: FilmFocus

Flabby, dull and overlong, it's a B-grade movie with A-list talent and an inflated idea of its own importance. Think Tsotsi crossed with Clockers with the imagination of neither.

May 6, 2006 Full Review Source: BBC

Promises much but doesn't connect in the same way as another recent film with racial themes, Crash.

May 5, 2006 Full Review Source: RTE Interactive (Dublin, Ireland)

Freedomland has an extremely strong opening sequence but its intriguing premise is quickly squandered in favour of overwritten speeches and a series of boring, nonsensical scenes that seem to go nowhere.

April 27, 2006 Full Review Source: ViewLondon
ViewLondon

[The] thematic material is so far beyond [director Joe] Roth's reach, you feel that even offering him a stepladder wouldn't help.

March 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Metro Weekly (Washington, DC)

If nothing else, Freedomland tries very hard to be a good film.

March 14, 2006 Full Review Source: Premiere Magazine
Premiere Magazine

Audience Reviews for Freedomland

Joe Roth's film adaptation from Richard Price's novel Freedomland is a highly underrated film. While certainly way too hysterical when it comes to acting and too messy and complex for it's own good, this is still a film that has enough twists to keep you glued to the screen.
Writer Richard Price has also made a screenplay for the film and it does have many interesting elements and powerful moments. I have to give credit to the exceptionally powerful first half of the film that grabs viewer from the throat. Once the clues begin to drop and the plot becomes more clear to us the film just packs a one dynamic moment after another. Ultimately it all ends up to an whimper and there is no clear resolution which story like this would have needed. There are just too many loose ends and too much material for it's own good. It would have needed a more minutes to it's running time to fully satisfy us in the audience. Now it all ends up too soon and with uneven results.
Acting is very solid when it comes to Samuel L. Jackson and Edie Falco here. Julianne Moore, while often impressive, instead goes a bit too overdrive here and her panic attacks begin to feel a bit more annoying than they might just intended to be.
Freedomland is solid, dark, powerful and mysterious little film that deserves to be seen. It might not be nothing more than a well made entertainment, but beneath it's surface is a story that has a important message and a relevant observations about us humans and our every day behaviour.
February 24, 2013
emilkakko

Super Reviewer

An ex-druggie white mom claims that she was car-jacked in a black neighborhood ... and that her 4 year old was in the back seat. Thus erupts simmering racial hatred, profiling, police brutality and mucho uber-drama in this uneven effort that has eyes bigger than its stomach. The work of Jackson, Moore and Falco do a lot towards saving what could'be been one truly disastrous mess but only just.
February 22, 2012
UniversalDreamer

Super Reviewer

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