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'Freedomland' is a joyless, uncomfortable film. While it does explore familiar themes, it juxtaposes an unusual pair — an innovation which should be interesting but ultimately fails despite the best efforts of the cast. In some ways it is a valiant attempt, but overall it fails in what it sets out to achieve.

Single mother Brenda Martin (Moore) wanders into a hospital and reports the abduction of her son during a carjacking. The investigator assigned to her case, Lorenzo Council (Jackson), is sympathetic, but he senses that Brenda is withholding vital facts.

Experience leads him to suspect that she may be implicated in her son’s disappearance. It may be that her claim that an unidentified black man made off with her car and sleeping child is an attempt to deflect suspicion on to a volatile community on the wrong side of the tracks, but her desperation certainly seems genuine.

Meanwhile, the police are having to contend with justifiably fraying tempers among the African-American community and Council is stuck in the middle.

Author/screenwriter Richard Price, whose 'Clockers' was made into an acclaimed film by Spike Lee, has shifted his focus from the Bronx to a similar location in New Jersey, but his themes are much the same. Racial tension and societies divided by the prejudice of authorities form the backdrop to the drama that is 'Freedomland'.

Julianne Moore’s portrayal of the traumatised mother is almost too plausible for comfort. Jackson gives a somewhat workaday performance as the tired, older cop, but even on a bad day this actor is both convincing and appealing. The outstanding performances, however, are delivered by Aunjanue Ellis as Brenda’s friend Felicia and Edie Falco as Karen Collucci, a bereaved mother who helps police to locate missing children.

Director Joe Roth is better known for his work as a producer and, sadly, this film provides further evidence that he should stick to that. His earlier directing attempts include 'America’s Sweethearts' and 'Christmas with the Kranks', both disappointing and uninspired films. Once again, Roth takes a good screenplay and a stellar cast and fails to deliver a passable film. Not even stars of this calibre can save the project.

For what should be a taut and emotional drama, the pace is lacking. Tension builds but does not hold and the film drags somewhat in the middle. At the same time, the dual storylines tend to detract from one another, chalking one up for realism but signalling defeat for a comprehensive plot.

Potentially compelling twists are over-built and drowned in raw emotion until predictability is inevitable. One scene in particular recalls the riot in Spike Lee’s 'Do the Right Thing', but where Lee delivered a fraught and almost mysterious atmosphere in the quiet before the storm, Roth labours it so that when the tension-breaker finally comes, the audience has long ceased to hold its breath.

The scenes between Moore and Jackson are electrifying to begin with, but as the pace of the narrative begins to lag the chemistry of the earlier encounters becomes over-worked and repetitive. It is a sad waste of two very fine actors.

One senses that an attempt has been made to outline the contrast between the facelessness of a mob and the individuality of the people who make up a community. Had this been achieved, it might have made for a very good film indeed.

There are many moments which, exploited differently, could have drawn the lines more clearly and posed some compelling questions about this distinction. Characters and plot-lines, certainly, would have made more sense and held the viewer’s attention better.

The germ of a good film lies somewhere in Freedomland, but it hasn’t been allowed to grow.