Subject: Retrospective: Frequency (2000)

From: John Ulmer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2003 19:30:26 -0000

Visit http://www.wiredonmovies.com/ for movie scripts, reviews, quotes, and 
more!

FREQUENCY
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel
Rated PG-13 for language and scary moments/violence
Directed by Gregory Hoblit (not a castmember of Lord of the Rings)
Written by Toby Emmerich

REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER

Can you imagine being able to talk to a dead loved one? What would you say, 
how would you react? And what if you knew how, when and where they died, and 
could warn them of their forecoming doom?

The questions are answered in Gregory Hoblit's "Frequency," in which a young 
man speaks to his father thirty years into the past. The story starts with 
Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid), a veteran firefighter who dies in a factory 
fire in October, 1969. Exactly thirty years later, in 1999, his 
thirty-six-year-old son John (Jim Caviezel) has become a police officer, 
breaking a tradition of all firefighters on his father's side.

One night as John is rummaging through a compartment under his stairs (he 
occupies the same house he grew up in), he comes across his dad's old ham 
radio. Out of morbid curiosity he sets it up and, eventually, manages to 
make it work. He clicks it on and a static voice comes across on the other 
end, asking John to identify himself. In the minutes that pass, John 
realizes he is speaking to his father on the exact same night, thirty years 
earlier (or thirty years later, depending on whose perspective you are 
taking into account).

The excuse for this wonderous ability of time communication is really quite 
nonsense - it has to do with a solar frequency in outer space that happens 
to be encompassing the sky in both 1969 and 1999 - but we instantly connect 
with the plot. The characters seem real enough, and sometimes that is all 
that counts. Recalling the plot of this film on my computer makes it seem 
just a bit more hokey than it was when you watch it. And that's probably the 
sign of a good director - one who can make skeptical audiences actually 
believe his ludicrous plot.

Through talking to his father, John is able to warn him of his death. Frank 
does avoid dying, but this sets off a chain event. By not dying, Frank's 
wife, and John's mother, who is a nurse in 1969 and 1999, was never told of 
her husband's death in 1969 (because he didn't die in this alternate 
timeline.) Therefore she never left the hospital that October night to 
grieve over her husband's death, and because of this, a serial killer known 
as the Nightingale Strangler (or something like that) ends up killing John's 
mother on her routine way home from the hospital, along with six other 
victims who were not killed in the "original" 1999.

But in the current 1999, John now has all the case files of the murders, 
since he is a cop and has access to them, and that means he knows when and 
where the Nightingale Strangler will attack. So 1969 Frank starts a case of 
detective, scoping out the joints on the night the killer murders his 
victims. Frank manages to grab some fingerprints of the anonymous killer, 
and in a very inventive plot twist, sticks the fingerprint evidence in a 
bag, hides it in his house, and tells John where he hid it. John goes 
looking in the 1999 house, and finds the evidence, right where Frank left it 
hidden in 1969.

A lot of the timeline theories in "Frequency" don't hold up. The movie 
reminds me of "Back to the Future" quite a bit, except the latter's plot 
makes theoretical sense and the former's does not. Take, for example, a 
scene where Frank, in the past, carves the words I'M STILL HERE, CHIEF into 
a table with a motor mechanism. John, in 1999, sees the words being carved 
as it happens in the past. Smoke comes out of the table as it happens and 
everything. But in reality, Frank would have done it thirty years ago, 
meaning that the table would have the words carved into it long before John 
sees them being carved invisibly. It's like in "BttF Part II" - when Biff 
gets his hands on that sports almanac, everything in the future suddenly 
changes. It doesn't start happening as Biff does it in real time. Confused? 
Me too.

Also, when Frank survives his destined death because of John's warning 
words, John suddenly gets new memories. Since his father never died, he now 
gets all these memories of them together after his (Frank's) death from the 
original 1969. He says to Frank later that night that now he has two streams 
of memories - those of Frank's death and afterwards, and those of Frank 
living and afterwards. But somehow, everyone else does not remember Frank's 
death - only John. Why? Simple: There wouldn't be an interesting film 
without it.

"Frequency" has almost as much thought put into its time changing as "BttF," 
but lacks the hard conviction that the "Future" movies had. They made sense, 
had little plot holes - or at least plot holes that could be analyzed. 
"Frequency" has a lot of plot holes that simply cannot be analyzed. They're 
just there.

But this movie has some major highlights. A battle between a serial killer 
in 1969 and 1999 is visually and psychologically thrilling, and very ironic 
in execution; moments like the fingerprint evidence being hidden, though a 
bit shallow, are fun - and the characters and actors are superb. This might 
not be as deep as "Back to the Future," but I found myself lost in this 
film, never checking my watch for its one hour fifty minute + running time. 
And that's a pretty rare thing these days.

Copyright, 2003, John Ulmer

==========
X-RAMR-ID: 35527
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1188308
X-RT-TitleID: 1096834
X-RT-SourceID: 1382
X-RT-AuthorID: 6769