FREQUENCY (2000) / *** 1/2
Directed by Gregory Hoblit. Screenplay by Tobias Emmerich. Starring Dennis Quaid, James Caviezel, Elizabeth Mitchell. Running time: 121 minutes. Rated AA by the MFCB. Reviewed on May 4th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
One of the big problems with many movies about changing history is that they tend to get bogged down in its mechanics. The difficulty is that our modern understanding of time is still incredibly limited, so any such discussion will by its very nature come across as a load of gobbledegook. Good movies like "Back To The Future" ignore the subject altogether, or at most give it a passing acknowledgement. Their makers are aware that the fun thing about time isn't how it works, but how it can be used in a dramatic context. "Frequency" is such a film, and it proves to be one of the most entertaining movies of the year so far.
John Sullivan (James Caviezel) is a cop in 1999 New York. He has just broken up with his girlfriend, drinks a little too much, and is all too aware that it's almost the thirtieth anniversary of the death of his father. Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid) was a firefighter who perished in 1969 rescuing a transient from a warehouse fire. One night, John happens upon his dad's old ham radio, mothballed since Frank's demise. For old times' sake, he switches it on.
A lot of things were happening in New York around the time of Frank's death. The "Amazing" Mets were on their way to winning the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles. A serial killer murdered four nurses before vanishing without a trace. And the aurora borealis -- the Northern Lights -- was making a rare week-long appearance in the skies above the city.
In 1999, the Northern Lights have returned to New York for the first time in three decades. By some freak accident of nature, this allows John to speak to Frank in 1969 via the ham radio. John manages to convince his father that he really is communicating from the future by predicting events of the Mets/Orioles World Series, and gives him enough information about the warehouse fire to save his life. But this changes the whole pattern of history, and not all for the good. Somehow, Frank's survival has meant that the so-called Nightingale Killer's death toll was ten instead of four -- and one of the "new" victims was John's mother Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell). Frank and John must cooperate across the years to stop the murderer in time.
"Frequency" is not a particularly deep movie. In a way it's about the relationship between fathers and sons, and how profoundly the absence of the former can affect the latter. And of course it deals with the familiar science-fiction notion of how changing one seemingly innocuous event can have major ramifications on things long after.
But, in the end, the real point of "Frequency" is just to tell a good story, and in this it excels. There are a lot of great scenes in which Frank and John's altering of history is explored, not on a pseudoscientific level but on a purely visceral one. The movie doesn't try to justify its temporal mechanics (indeed, there are some inconsistencies in how Frank's actions ripple down to his son), but just taps into our sense of the fantastic.
For example, at one point Frank communicates with John by burning a message into his desk. John sees the letters appear one by one and touches them, expecting to find them hot. But of course they're not, because they were made thirty years earlier. Later, Frank acquires a wallet with the murderer's fingerprints on it, but can't go to the police in 1969 because they'd never believe his story. So he hides the wallet beneath a loose floorboard, where John retrieves it in 1999. "Wow," breathes Frank, and he is speaking as much for the audience as for himself. While these sorts of things are nothing new to the genre, rarely have they been done so well and with such enthusiasm. And there are a couple of particularly imaginative sequences, especially a visually awesome one at the movie's climax.
The only real downside to "Frequency" is that the serial killer storyline which dominates its second half is rather pedestrian. This is not to say that it's badly done -- it's intriguing enough in its own way -- but it just doesn't live up to the wonder which permeates the rest of the movie. Scenes like one where Frank is arrested for being the Nightingale killer seem commonplace, for instance, and the proceedings generally feel as though they've been lifted out of an uncommonly bizarre episode of "Law And Order".
But even this is energised by excellent performances from Caviezel and particularly Quaid. "Frequency" lives or dies on the conviction of their father/son relationship, made more challenging by the fact that their communications aren't face-to-face. But both actors are up to the task, bringing genuine emotion to the story. As a result, it's easy to suspend our disbelief and buy into the movie, and it's hard to suppress a cheer when Frank survives the fire, or when father and son team up to stop the killer.
Director Gregory Hoblit does a good job, especially in keeping the frequent and potentially dull scenes of Frank and John talking on the radio alive and interesting. Also, he wisely chooses not to overplay the changes father and son have wrought on the present. Although some differences are highlighted, many others are left as subtle background detail. Like "Back To The Future", this gives the film a richness it would otherwise be lacking.
"Frequency" has a broad appeal that's rare in movies today. It's a science-fiction movie where the characters come first, where visual effects take a backseat to story and acting, but which is exciting and suspenseful nonetheless. "Frequency" probably won't win any Academy Awards, but it was one of the most enjoyable cinematic experiences I've had in a long time. And, in the end, I can't ask for much more than that.
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan. Archived at The Popcorn Gallery, http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies/Frequency.html
-- _______________________________________________________________________ / Shannon Patrick Sullivan | "We are all in the gutter, but some of us \ | shannon@mun.ca | are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde | \___________________________|__________________________________________/ | Popcorn Gallery Movie Reviews www.physics.mun.ca/~sps/movies.html | | Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time (Travel) /drwho.html |
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