FREEDOMLAND

US, 2006, 113 minutes, Colour.
Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne Moore, Edie Falco, Ron Elgard, William Forsyth, Anthony Mackie, Clarke Peters.
Directed by Joe Roth.

Freedomland is an ironic title for this police drama. Literally, it refers to a New Jersey orphanage that had a dark history of its treatment of children and had been closed down. More figuratively, it refers to the racist attitudes prevailing in New Jersey neighbourhoods where local people feel imprisoned.

The setting is 1999 and it is alarming to see such a picture of racial animosity at the end of the 20th century, forty years after the civil rights movement. There are many intense sequences and confrontations.

This is increased when a woman who helps out at a care centre in the neighbourhood claims that she was carjacked, the perpetrator taking her four year old son in the back of the car. She is in a state of shock (and the flashbacks visualise the attack). When people hear that the suspect is from their projects and the police move in en masse, tensions simmer and build up to a stance between them and us, citizens versus police with batons and shields.

This racism theme is in the background all the time (aggravated by the fact that the brother of the distraught mother is a surly member of the local police). The centre of attention is the investigation into the disappearance of the child and the consequent search. It is presided over by Samuel L. Jackson as an experienced detective who is the champion of the neighbourhood. He also has problems with his own life and his influence on his wild son now serving a prison sentence.

Julianne Moore plays the mother. The screenplay by novelist Richard Price from his own book, provides a number of long speeches for the stars. Julianne Moore in particular has many emotional scenes and is powerful in her ability to create an atmosphere.

Price based his police officer on a detective who had helped him in his research for Spike Lee’s Clockers during the 1990s. He had also discovered an abandoned orphanage on Staten Island which led him to the idea of Freedomland. He also came across a group of parents who assisted in the recovery of abducted children, offering the frightening statistic that in a large majority of the cases it was a parent who had taken or killed the child. The Sopranos Edie Falco plays the head of such a group.

This means that Freedomland is not an easy film at all. It is deadly serious in its quite wide ranging social themes rather than just simply a large scale version of a TV episode.

1. A police thriller? Race thriller? Themes of family? Blending these themes together? The hostile critical response to the film?

2. The film based on actuality, episodes in New Jersey in 1999? Relevance later?

3. The title, the institution and the fact? The ironies? Race issues? The world of New Jersey, the contrast between the area of Dempsey and the area of Gannon?

4. New Jersey, the picturing of the neighbourhoods, the estate, the police presence, hospitals? Light and darkness? Night sequences? Apartments, schools? The score and the mood?

5. The credits and the city? Brenda, her walking, the blood, the hospital? Her collapse?

6. Lorenzo Council in himself, Samuel L. Jackson? His skill at his work? The encounter with Karen Collucci and her group? Their being seen walking in protest? His son Bobby, the flashbacks about bringing him up, the ambitions for the boy, the hopes? His son in jail? His visiting him? His partnership with Boyle? His work, going to the estate, the visits, Felicia and Billy? The boy and the woman talking? Big Daddy? His ability to cope – the pressures on him?

7. Julianne Moore as Brenda, her story, the opening and the emotions, the shock of the experience, the attack, the boy being kidnapped? The hospital staff? The police? Lorenzo and his reaction? Her story, his story? Her work in the projects? Her drug past, in and out of moods? Her son? Seeing her at work with the children? Her grief about her own child, her suddenly becoming distraught? Her relationship with her brother, his domination, condemnation of her? Support of her against the police? The dangers in the neighbourhood? Her knowing Felicia, Felicia looking after her? Karen, the investigations? The possibility that she had killed her child? Audience response to this suggestion? Her being taken to Freedom Land, Freedom Land’s story? The orphanage? The treatment of children? Her revealing the truth? Going to hospital, prison, Lorenzo’s visit? The background of her drugs, her neediness, her family and their rejection, her brother, the affair with Billy, the truth about what had happened to her child?

8. Karen, the women, their campaigns? Their experience of abductions and death? Seeing them in the protest march? The offer of help, the discussions with Lorenzo? Karen and her theory about the parent killing the child? It seeming exaggerated in the context? Her being accurate? The help, the discussions, Karen’s speeches? As an observer in Freedom Land?

9. Lorenzo, his experience of the police precinct, of the people on the estate? The growing tension, the protests? The intrusion of the police, the police barriers, the armed police? His interaction with Karen? With his bosses? The clashes with Danny Martin? The issue of taking sides or not? Letting Boyle handle the situations? The demonstrations, the growing riots? Going to Freedom Land, the discovery of the truth?

10. Danny Martin, the white racist police, his fellow officers, his stances against Lorenzo? His drug background? Brutality? His treatment of Brenda?

11. Felicia, in herself, at the school, friendship with Brenda? Her relationship with Billy? Her asking Lorenzo for help as regards Billy? On the lines? With Brenda? The truth about Billy and the affair and his behaviour?

12. Billy, his relationship with Felicia, with Brenda? The affair? His handling the situation? The revelation of the truth, his helping Brenda with the burial of the baby? The story about the carjacking?

13. The children, Brenda and her life, her son? Yet her selfishness, his death, the overdose? Her regrets, trauma and shock? Her constructing the truth?

14. Boyle, partnership with Lorenzo, attitude towards his police work, friendly towards the people in the estate?

15. The Reverend Longway, his interventions, religion and politics, seeing things to his advantage? Rousing people?

16. The locals, the characters on the picket lines, the treatment by the police, brutality, their responses?

17. The situations and the revelation of racist presumptions, prejudices – and any spark able to light protest and fire?

18. Lorenzo visiting Brenda? His going to visit his son and strengthen the relationship with him?