If I had to give this review of “Freedomland” a title, it would be “It makes a point, both positively and negatively.” First, the positive-it deals with a woman who claims a black man carjacked her and her four-year-old son was taken as he was asleep in the backseat. Fortunately for her, Samuel L. Jackson’s character turns up as the detective on the case, and he sympathizes with the pain she is going through, despite unrest in the community of Armstrong. The people of Armstrong are angry that the police department jumps strongly on this case to help a white woman, when it hasn’t shown the same response for African-Amercan families. Jackson’s character of Lorenzo Council is Brenda Martin’s (Julianne Moore) greatest ally. He also tells Brenda he believes in God and that she should “let go and let God.” A priest is also seen praying for the search for the boy.
Now on to the negative. This movie is heavily laden with obcenities and profanities. And in one very low moment in the film a man uses the F word in connection with God. What could have been a compelling story for those twelve and above instead becomes a wasteland of almost every filthy word the viewer could think of. Whenever a viewer is inundated with over 30 references of the F word in less than two hours, not to mention many other such words, Hollywood must be bereft of other words in the English language. I guess the writers have no imagination and can only use the obscenities over and over and over and…well, you get the idea. At one point the F word came so fast and frequently within about four seconds time that I was writing it down on my pad with the speed of the Six Million Dollar Man. The negatives outrank the positives in this film. Skip this one.