| Overall Grade: |
D+ |
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| Story: |
C |
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| Acting: |
C- |
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| Direction: |
D+ |
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| Visuals: |
C |
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Freedomland
by Bisonguy (movies profile)
Jan 27, 2007
65
of
79 people found this review helpful
When you look up in the dictionary the word, "over-acting", you'll see a big picture of Julianne Moore as Brenda in the film Freedomland. I'll say this about this film, as soon as i saw that Joe Roth was directing (Christmas With the Kranks), i realized that I was about to witness one of the worst films of 2006.
It is unfortunate for this movie to turn out to be so bad because it has a decent cast of actors to work with. Samuel L. Jackson, Edie Falco, and even Julianne Moore are all proven to be good actors when given good material and a good director. This film is plagued by over-acting, though. I found it very comical to see Julianne Moore's performance. I had to leave the theater at one point because i was laughing at how silly she looked and how bad this movie turned out to be.
The premise of the story is that Brenda(Julianne Moore), walks into this hospital one night completely traumatized, and tells Detective Lorenzo (Sam. Jackson) that she was thrown from her car and the car stolen with her child in the back seat. Now, Jackson has to try to find the child while dealing with the racial conflict within the town. Due to Brenda blaming an African American for the crime in an African American community, the cops shutdown the area completely. From here it goes through about 20 twist and turns and it goes from a decent start to a ridiculous riot scene near the end.
As for the director, well Joe Roth made Christmas with the Kranks, and to his credit, Freedomland is a baby step in the right direction. Roth makes some really irritating decisions though in the film. During the first interrogation scene between Jackson and Moore, he does this real fast pace camera work, going back and forth between the characters. This is suppose to make it dramatic i guess, but all it did was annoy me even more. Besides that example, he allowed Juilanne Moore to give the worst performance of her life. Joe Roth might have a good movie somewhere in him, but he just hasn't found it yet.
As you can see, I didn't like this movie. I found it funny though, so i'd rent it in like two or three months when its on dvd and see overacting at its finest.
Final Grade: D+ |
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