MOVIE REVIEW

In "Freedomland," a New Jersey child is missing and racial tensions are rising.

By Carina Chocano, Times Staff Writer

It's late, in a rough part of town, and a bedraggled blond shuffles down streets that positively shimmer with menace. The woman is oblivious, possibly on drugs, as she trudges listlessly past steaming grates, trailing lights, spooked cats, police protests, candlelight vigils and Samuel L. Jackson sitting in a car, looking troubled. Wandering into a hospital, she holds up her bloodied palms. What's going on? In the fluorescent lights, a few things become clear. The blond is no blond. She's Julianne Moore. And, yes, in fact, she has misplaced another kid.

It takes a while for this bit of information to surface, though, anyone who has seen the trailers for "Freedomland," which don't exactly skimp on maternal angst, already knows this is going to be a sad-mommy story. What we don't know is that it may be a bad-mommy story as well. These, along with the mad-mommy roles (which may be combined with the sad, but not with the bad), have become reliable paycheck generators for dramatic actresses older than 40. And Moore, who has seemed so mysterious and inscrutable in the past, is now routinely called upon to alternately try to hold it together (as in "The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio" and "The Hours") or just flat out lose it. Not that it isn't understandable. Moore falls apart better than just about anyone — better, even, than Jodie Foster, who tends to get pinched and turbocharged when her movie children are imperiled. Moore's style is softer. Her biceps graciously recede in the face of danger, granting center stage to the infinitesimal quivering of her delicate, pink-rimmed features. Take away her fictional kid and even her hair hangs limp in defeat. But it would be interesting to see her take on a contemporary role in which she isn't exalted, degraded or, worse, artificially cutes-ified. It's as if her talent had consigned her to the most showboaty roles, when the greatest thing would be to see her play a person again.

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"Freedomland," written by Richard Price from his novel of the same name, directed by Joe Roth and produced by Scott Rudin, purports to be a social study of racial tensions straining under the weight of a highly publicized, hot-button tragedy. But this angle tends to remain relegated to the sidelines. Where the movie spares no bombast whatsoever is in the telling of the prurient — that is to say personal — story of the shifty stigmata lady and her missing child. Brenda Martin (Moore) claims she has been carjacked, but it takes her 10 minutes to spill the full bag of beans: Her 4-year-old son was asleep in the back seat of the Honda.

We're meant to think — as does Lorenzo Council (Jackson), the detective assigned to the case — that there's something not quite right about Brenda. She lives in nearby, predominantly white Gannon, N.J., where her brother is on the police force, but she works as a nursery school teacher in the predominantly black housing projects of Dempsy, and she may be keeping quiet to protect someone. But, honestly, it's hard to think at all, because suddenly the soundtrack is pounding, the camera is spinning and Council is having a hysteria-induced asthma attack. When a nurse bounds into the room to give him a shot of adrenaline, you think, please, that's the last thing this guy needs.

Within moments, the stuff is coursing through the veins of the narrative. Brenda describes her assailant as a young black man, and the Gannon police seal off the Dempsy projects until the residents turn the perpetrator in. Price's novel was published in 1998, and the story feels very much attuned to that particular time. "We're gonna shut the place down like it's East [bleep] Berlin!" Brenda's brother announces. He also wants to know: Is Council "working or protecting [his] own?"

Possibly neither. Assigned to Brenda, Council spends a considerable amount of time indulging her, and generally acting less like Philip Marlowe than like Dr. Phil. ("I tell ya, 22 years of policing in this city, makes it hard to have faith in humanity," he tells her at one point, before suggesting she "let go and let God.")

As tensions in the projects rise, and Brenda continues to hide something, Council finally agrees to accept the help of Karen Collucci (Edie Falco), an activist who organizes hunts for missing children. (The title of the movie refers to an abandoned asylum for foundlings, where the boy may have been left.) As a fellow mother of an abducted child, Karen knows the way to a mother's heart is through her overwhelming guilt, justified or not, at wanting to retain a modicum of personal freedom after motherhood. To which Hollywood says, "Bad mommy!"

'Freedomland'

MPAA rating: R for language and some violent content