Since I finished reading Richard Price’s Freedomland, I’ve been looking forward to seeing it filmed – I thought in the right hands it would make a great movie. I like the way Price writes, plus at the time I was living in Jersey City, one of the models for the fictional Dempsy, New Jersey. And not many movies attempt a halfway realistic portray of the lives of poor people in the inner city. Plus, anything set in New Jersey I’m programmed to try and like.
I only recently got wind that it had filmed and was being released this year. OK, first off, a mid-February release did not bode well. Julianne Moore seemed like a bad choice for the female lead. Samuel L. Jackson – well, maybe the part of Lorenzo would give him a little more of a challenge and he’d offer more than his usual top-volume, I’m-a-badass performance that he’s be phoning in the past few years.
However, today’s review in the New York Times and the first comment in the IMDb say pretty much the same thing: it’s awful, incoherent, poorly plotted, and wofully miscast.
Before I waste by $10.75 and two Metrocard swipes on this thing, has anyone else seen it yet? Any redeeming qualities?
I know I’d recommend passing even if I’d seen it. (I haven’t.)
I’d pass if I had a free ticket (which I could get – they’ve had free ticket giveaways for two weeks now) and Sam Jackson’s one of my favorite stars.
Why?
It’s a Hollywood studio feature film released between late January and (roughly) April… the late winter/early spring movie season. Most movies released during this time suck. They just do.
Either they are genre imports from another country or simplistic formulatic fare or brainless date movies or lowbrow comedies or great movie concepts with key (usually directoral) flaws or too high concept or weirdly marketed because the studio had NO idea what to do with it or tested marketed poorly or the film’s controversial plot point becomes suddenly too controversial or one of the stars has a personal life in turmoil and the studio wants to distance themselves from him/her…
Some really good documentaries make their appearances around this time. So do dubbed/subtitled Hong Kong imports and (some) indie fare.
In the case of Freedomland, the director, Revolution Studios head Roth is being savaged. This seems to have been potentially a great movie with proven actors and a good script told poorly.
I was always afraid that Hollywood would butcher that movie. The ending was fantastic, even though you knew the answer. I loved all the little details Price had in there, that made the book interesting, like the detective’s asthma. Although I did think Cornelius Eady had a much more interesting take on the Susan Smith case.
The San Francisco Chronicle liked it. Or rather reviewer Mick La Salle liked the individual performances and the first, more kinetic hour of the film enough to recommend it:
It’s been a long time since I hated a movie like this. I think the Blair Witch Project was the last one, so for anyone who might disagree with me, maybe that will give you a sense of where I’m coming from.
I didn’t read the book before the movie, and I’m glad. If I’d had any more information than I’d been presented on the celluloid, I’d be twice as pissed. That would mean that I had liked the book and wanted to see more.
I have a difficult time sometimes, when something makes me hostile, verbalizing all of the finer points of WHY exactly I feel that way. Mostly, it’s because I will never get that couple hours of my life back.
Ridiculously over the top acting? Check.
Totally nonsequitir story adds? Check. (The asthma thing was one. No explanation, no tie in, no reason. Just there.)
No plot twists or any interesting devices or revelation? Check.
No real resolution of conflict? Check.
STOOPID advertising tag line? Check. (“Sometimes the truth hides where noone dares to look.” Bull…pucky.)
I usually love Sammy L., so that was my first thought going in, that it must be good, because he hasn’t tended to associate himself with crap in the past.
The final thing that comes to mind was that it was terribly preachy. Really so.
All in all, I was disappointed because I love to go to even movies that are borderline. I love to be entertained. I will suspend my disbelief as soon as I get into the theater. It makes it a more enjoyable experience for me. I will not pick apart contradictions or anything like that. I came to lose myself in a story, and by Og, that’s what I’ll do. This movie was so bad, it punched right through my need to be entertained.
