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This recently released movie stars Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Moore, and Edie Falco among others. A very stellar cast and some great acting. If you didn’t read a review of this movie and were depending only on the interest sparked by watching the trailer at the theater, you will be greatly surprised. Although a most depressing movie, it is very well done and thought provoking. While I am not a fan of Julianne Moore and have always considered her a more animated cryer like Merryl Streep, she played the part so effectively and hysterically I hated her even more. Well, let’s get down to the plot … and yes, I am going to spoil it for you. So, if you don’t want to read any further, I can understand. The movie opens with Moore stumbling into the emergency room with bloody hands. She told the investigators she was carjacked. Then she revealed that her 4 year old son was in the car. This apparently happened near a “project” much like Cabriny Green in Chicago. She is Caucasian. Her brother, a police officer in a nearby predominantly white precinct, overreacts and the project essentially gets quaranteened hoping the residents will give up the culprit. Samuel L. Jackson, who is an officer in that precinct, senses that something is amiss. He arranges a search scenario in which Edie Falco, whose child was abducted 10 years previous and never found, psychologically manuevers Moore into admitting that she wasn’t carjacked and that she had actually buried her dead son two days previous. As a result of poor parenting, the child accidentally overdoses on cough medicine. Secondarily, useless riot breaks out in the project. It is easy to understand overreaction on all sides and makes you wonder why we “really can’t all just get along.” You empathsize with all sides in this which leave you conflicted and somewhat disturbed. But it does make you think. It takes a bit for the various plotlines to unfold and it certainly doesn’t start out as a prescriptive movie. Samuel L. Jackson, Ron Eldard, and Edie Falco are stellar. Julianna Moore certainly plays the character to a hysterical tee and through most of the movie you just want to slap her senseless. If you are looking for humor, levity, or mindless entertainment, see Date Movie. If you are in a mood for deep thoughts and have a couple of hours to kill and plan on taking mood elevators later, see Freedomland. I give it 3 out of 4 stars.