麻豆社

A carjacking, a missing child and a race riot in the making: at first glance Freedomland has all the ingredients of a taut, provocative melodrama. Unfortunately, something has gone AWOL between Richard Price's novel and Joe Roth's film, and there's not much Samuel L Jackson and Julianne Moore can do about it. Flabby, dull and overlong, it's a B-grade movie with A-list talent and an inflated idea of its own importance. Think Tsotsi crossed with Clockers with the imagination of neither.

It was Spike Lee who filmed the latter Price book, and Freedomland desperately needs a helmer of his calibre to inject life into its complex, labyrinthine narrative. Instead it has Hollywood hack Joe Roth, who singularly fails to energise this saga of a working-class mom (Moore) who sparks a racial firestorm when she stumbles into hospital claiming her infant son has been kidnapped by a black neighbour.

"IT'S A WONDER IT REACHED THE SCREEN"

Veteran detective Lorenzo Council (Jackson) is the only man who can keep the two sides of the community apart long enough to solve the mystery. But his investigations are hindered by inconsistencies in Moore's story and her policeman brother (Ron Eldard), a racist hothead happy to pin the crime on an innocent party.

Set in 1999 but feeling a good deal more dated, Freedomland unfolds with so little urgency it's a wonder it reached the screen at all. And though Jackson and Moore display their usual professionalism, we've seen them do bullish shouting and tearful whimpering enough times to know their hearts aren't really in it.

Freedomland is released in UK cinemas on Friday 28th April 2006.