It doesn't take long for overwrought weirdness to rear its overwrought and weird head in Freedomland. Early in the film, streetwise inner-city police detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) is interviewing a carjacking victim when he suffers a sudden asthma attack. What had been a reasonably involving scene quickly goes loopy with shaky handheld camera movements and frenetic editing. Then another cop scurries in to administer a shot of adrenaline to Lorenzo, who continues to bark out questions in between frantic puffs on his inhalant.

Yikes. When a movie gets this hysterical this quickly, adrenaline is the last thing anyone needs.

Based on the novel by Richard Price, Freedomland begins with a pale and dazed woman, Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore), stumbling into a New Jersey hospital. She tells Lorenzo she was carjacked by a young black man near a predominantly African-American housing project. In the course of the police interview, however, Brenda drops a bombshell: Her 4-year-old son was in the back seat of the car when the carjacker sped away.

Things get complicated after the woman's apparent after-thought. Brenda is white and the suspect black, and so the crime ignites long-simmering racial tensions in the area. The situation is aggravated by Brenda's hotheaded brother, Danny Martin (Ron Eldard), a cop on a mostly white force in an adjacent city. Amid a manhunt for the carjacker, police surround the black housing project and place it in lockdown. The restrictions rankle the black residents who point out that the recent murders of black children haven't elicited quite the same zeal from local law enforcement.

Aside from Eldard's typically over-the-top performance, it is acting that saves this melodrama from total obscurity. Samuel L. Jackson is impressive in a complex role that gets away from the parody his work has become in recent years. Julianne Moore continues her streak of being far better than the movies she chooses. Best of all is "The Sopranos"' Edie Falco in a memorable role as the head of a grassroots organization that searches for missing children.

Falco is front and center in one of the few scenes that doesn't choke on histrionics. As director Joe Roth has proven with duds like Christmas with the Kranks and America's Sweethearts, subtlety isn't his strong suit. Combined with James Newton Howard's bombastic music score, Roth squanders the potentially explosive themes of racism and children in peril.

Freedomland is particularly disappointing because it was scripted by Price, a gifted storyteller who adapts his own novel here. Sadly, the screenplay is beset by tough-to-swallow contrivances. One doubts that even New Jersey's most incompetent police department would allow a detective to whisk a crime victim through a housing project on the verge of a full-scale riot and continually let her wander off by herself.

Then again, Lorenzo is a decidedly different breed of cop, the kind who periodically puts his investigation on hold so he can get into some bizarre preaching to Brenda. He is not alone in his inexplicable actions. Freedomland is packed with people whose behavior seems more driven by a hackneyed screenplay than by recognizable characterizations.

None of it is very convincing. All of it is very shrill.

Viewers can select 2:40.1 anamorphic widescreen or -- for those Luddites who prefer their cinema served pan-and-scan -- in a full-frame 1.33:1 format. The picture quality is exquisite. The blacks are inky, the colors rich. The film's visual scheme incorporates a slightly bleached-out look that is by design.

Viewers can choose between Stereo 2.0 or Dolby Digital 5.1. While much of the sound is dialogue-driven, the 5.1 is clear, reasonably immersive and makes good use of sound separation. No complaints. Audio and subtitles are available in English and French.

Do previews count as extras? If so, you're in luck: Click, Friends with Money, Underworld: Evolution, Little Man, Marie Antoinette, Basic Instinct 2, The Boondocks, The Forgotten, The Missing and S.W.A.T.

Final Thoughts:

Hidden within the fatty folds of this bloated drama is a lean, gritty tale yearning to be told. Some considerable talent was involved here, after all. Maybe someday when Hollywood stops remaking good films and tries its hand at retooling bad ones …