''The Free World'' is a 2016 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Jason Lew. It was shown in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section at the

2016 Sundance Film Festival The 2016 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 21 to January 31, 2016. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 2, 2015. The opening night film was ''Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You'', directed by Heidi E ...

Plot

Martin "Mohamed" Lundy (

Boyd Holbrook Robert Boyd Holbrook (born September 1, 1981) is an American actor. He has starred in the Netflix series ''Narcos'' (2015-2017) as DEA agent Steve Murphy and '' The Sandman'' (2022-) as the Corinthian, as well as in the History miniseries '' Ha ...

) has been released by the efforts of the

Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futu ...

after at least 17 years in Amgola prison and is working at Second Chance animal shelter run by Linda Workman (

Octavia Spencer Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is an American actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Critics' Choice Awards and three Screen Actors ...

) in Louisiana. A badly injured dog is brought in by Doris Lamb (

Elisabeth Moss Elisabeth Singleton Moss (born July 24, 1982) is an American actor. She is known for her work in several television dramas, earning such accolades as two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, which led ''Vulture'' to name her the ...

) and her unsympathetic husband John, a police officer. The dog is put down due to his injuries. Doris comes back to the shelter incapable of caring for herself. Mohamed takes her in without anyone knowing about it. He learns that Doris' husband has been killed and his wife is a person of interest. Law enforcement look to Mohamed to provide the information needed to solve the murder. Mohamed and Doris grow to respect each other. No one is aware that she is holing up at Mohamed's. Doris imagines she sees her dog outside Mohamed's apartment, and while going after it locks herself out. Mohamed comes home to find her waiting at the door subsequently, their thoughts are that law enforcement will capture them, so they go on the run. They make contact with Mohamed's friend from prison, who takes him to someone that will take them to safety, but are themselves held captive. They escape, are stopped on the highway by law enforcement, and are captured after a stand-off. Mohamed reaches for something, law enforcement shoots him, and from out of his pocket drops prayer beads. Mohamed survives his injuries, and visits Doris while she is serving her prison sentence for the killing of her husband. It is not clear whether or not she has been convicted of manslaughter or murder.

Cast

as Martin "Mohamed" Lundy *

as Doris Lamb *

as Linda Workman *

Sung Kang Sung-Ho Kang (born April 8, 1972) is an American actor. His first major role was as Han Lue in the ''Fast & Furious'' franchise, a character he first portrayed in ''Better Luck Tomorrow'' (2002). Kang also played John Mak in the television serie ...

as Detective Shin * Sue-Lynn Ansari as Diner Waitress * James Moses Black as Officer Smith

Critical response

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has rating of 50%, based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

the film has a score of 46 out of 100 score, based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Free World, The 2016 films 2016 drama films American drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films