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Freedomland ( Samuel Jackson)

Directed by Joe Roth Writing credits ( WGA) Richard Price (screenplay) Richard Price (novel)

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Genre: Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller

Tagline: The Truth Is Hiding Where No One Dares To Look.

Plot Outline:  When her son 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 (Jackson) and a white missing child researcher team up to investigate the case, which they discover may be more complicated than they expected.

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User Rating: 4.6/10 (1,553 votes)

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Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore and Edie Falco deliver the grand-slam performances largely missing from this year's Oscar lineup. Jackson plays Lorenzo, a cop whose territory includes a mostly-black New Jersey suburb, where Brenda Martin (Moore) teaches. Dazed and bloody, she wanders into a hospital claiming that she's been carjacked and that her four year-old son is missing. When the police descend upon the neighborhood searching for the kidnapper, Lorenzo must straddle both worlds and keep an uneasy peace. Falco co-stars as a mother who specializes in searching for lost children. Hack director Joe Roth ( America's Sweethearts, Christmas with the Kranks) unexpectedly steps up for this one, focusing on the well-built characters and allowing them to carry the potentially dubious story. Richard Price adapted his 1998 novel.

t's late, in a rough part of town, and a bedraggled blond shuffles down streets that positively shimmer with menace. The woman is oblivious, possibly on drugs, as she trudges listlessly past steaming grates, trailing lights, spooked cats, police protests, candlelight vigils and Samuel L. Jackson sitting in a car, looking troubled. Wandering into a hospital, she holds up her bloodied palms. What's going on? In the fluorescent lights, a few things become clear. The blond is no blond. She's Julianne Moore. And, yes, in fact, she has misplaced another kid.

It takes a while for this bit of information to surface, though, anyone who has seen the trailers for "Freedomland," which don't exactly skimp on maternal angst, already knows this is going to be a sad-mommy story. What we don't know is that it may be a bad-mommy story as well. These, along with the mad-mommy roles (which may be combined with the sad, but not with the bad), have become reliable paycheck generators for dramatic actresses older than 40. And Moore, who has seemed so mysterious and inscrutable in the past, is now routinely called upon to alternately try to hold it together (as in "The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio" and "The Hours") or just flat out lose it. Not that it isn't understandable. Moore falls apart better than just about anyone �� better, even, than Jodie Foster, who tends to get pinched and turbocharged when her movie children are imperiled. Moore's style is softer. Her biceps graciously recede in the face of danger, granting center stage to the infinitesimal quivering of her delicate, pink-rimmed features. Take away her fictional kid and even her hair hangs limp in defeat. But it would be interesting to see her take on a contemporary role in which she isn't exalted, degraded or, worse, artificially cutes-ified. It's as if her talent had consigned her to the most showboaty roles, when the greatest thing would be to see her play a person again.