Freedomland (2006)

     I hear this movie is advertised as a thriller and the tag line going with is "His streets. His rules." There is nothing more misleading than these labels. The movie is 'thrilling' but it is marginal to what I understand to be that genre - not much action, not enough explosions of all sorts...raising definitely not the same kind of emotions.      I mostly liked Julianne Moore who does a great job at creating tensions: there is even a surprisingly long monologue that she sustains brilliantly. I read a review saying she does not fit the character in the book (there seems to be a book about this) because she is too week when she should have been stronger because 'she lived in that neighbourhood'. There is a point there but I can also go for the crashed, bordering insane mother who lost her child. Bottom line - I liked what she did. I would also mention Edie Falco. She acts the rough women, very close to vigilante type. I find her a bit inflexible but I can see her as type of Brenda (Julianne Moore) ten years later.     The story is of some interest to me also because it touches upon issues like racism and justice. This secondary line has enough power to come through and it almost feels like the emotional release from the tension that J. Moore and Samuel L. Jackson create.... which I find particularly interesting since it is a tensed situation in itself. The plot is nicely interwoven such that connections appear when you least expected and (some) things are fused together which gives more weight to individual threads.      Yeap...I'd watch it again.