Frequency
"Frequency", with Dennis Quaid, James Caviezel, Elizabeth Mitchell, Daniel Henson, André Braugher, Shawn Doyle, and Noah Emmerich. Written by Tobias Emmerich, directed by Gregory Hoblit. MPAA rating PG-13 for intense violence and disturbing images. Run time 115 minutes.
"Frequency" begins by introducing us to Frank Sullivan (Quaid) and his family; his wife Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell) and his young son John (Daniel Henson). The time is October 1969, the place is Queens, New York. The whole planet is focused on the Miracle Mets as they take on the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. (This might have been a whole different moovie if the long suffering and totally hapless Cubs could have kept their hold on first place that year.) The only things that can keep John Sullivan away from the Series is smoke and flames - John is a New York firefighter.
Meanwhile, 93 million miles away, the Sun erupts in huge solar flares, and the Aurora Borealis puts on a huge sky show over New York - c'mon, it's a moovie, not a science lesson - you wouldn't be able able to see the Aurora in New York if Rudy Guliani wore it as a hat - and John, an amateur radio operator, a "Ham", finds that due to the unusual conditions, he's conversing with people much farther away than he ever dreamed. In fact, he's conversing with someone who knows how and when he's going to die. Somehow, the solar flares and the resulting Aurora have enabled John's son John, now a New York cop, to contact him from 1999 by way of his dad's old radio. Future John tells his dad how to keep from dying in a warehouse fire, and in doing so sets off a chain reaction that throws everything in the now into utter chaos.
Nice idea, and not too badly achieved. This moovie draws on a number of other ideas; "Field of Dreams" for the father-son/baseball connection, "Seven", among others, for a serial killer theme, and the altered reality from past to future sort of feels like Ursula K. LeGuin's George Orr from "Lathe Of Heaven" crossed with Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim from "Slaughterhouse-Five". There are probably other parallels, but these are the first ones that popped into my head. Oh yeah, here's another: Bradbury's "A Distant Thunder".
I'm not going to hand out a lot of spoilers about "Frequency", and that's all right, because the story is well told, and weaves back and forth in time so seamlessly that it meets itself going both ways. There is a lot more substance to "Frequency" than just the time warping radio discussions. The scene where father and son discover their new and seemingly impossible reality across the chasm of three decades is genuinely touching. There is no scarcity of tense moments either, as father and son team up to try and solve a thirty year old string of serial murders.
The essence of the ending however, is telegraphed from early on, and should come as a surprise to no one, unless they spent half the moovie standing out in the lobby trying to decide between popcorn and nachos, in which case, they would be just as well off at QuikTrip.
I liked "Frequency", an interesting blend of science fantasy and drama. Director Gregory Hoblit doesn't rush things, and lets the characters develop naturally. When the story begins to turn, he picks up the pace and lets the audience play along on the whodunit. (Even after you know "who", the time warp makes it a bit tough to figure out "how", and sometimes "when" and "if".)
Three cows for "Frequency", but just between you and me, my cows wanted the Cubs to win in '69.
"Frequency" begins by introducing us to Frank Sullivan (Quaid) and his family; his wife Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell) and his young son John (Daniel Henson). The time is October 1969, the place is Queens, New York. The whole planet is focused on the Miracle Mets as they take on the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. (This might have been a whole different moovie if the long suffering and totally hapless Cubs could have kept their hold on first place that year.) The only things that can keep John Sullivan away from the Series is smoke and flames - John is a New York firefighter.
Meanwhile, 93 million miles away, the Sun erupts in huge solar flares, and the Aurora Borealis puts on a huge sky show over New York - c'mon, it's a moovie, not a science lesson - you wouldn't be able able to see the Aurora in New York if Rudy Guliani wore it as a hat - and John, an amateur radio operator, a "Ham", finds that due to the unusual conditions, he's conversing with people much farther away than he ever dreamed. In fact, he's conversing with someone who knows how and when he's going to die. Somehow, the solar flares and the resulting Aurora have enabled John's son John, now a New York cop, to contact him from 1999 by way of his dad's old radio. Future John tells his dad how to keep from dying in a warehouse fire, and in doing so sets off a chain reaction that throws everything in the now into utter chaos.
Nice idea, and not too badly achieved. This moovie draws on a number of other ideas; "Field of Dreams" for the father-son/baseball connection, "Seven", among others, for a serial killer theme, and the altered reality from past to future sort of feels like Ursula K. LeGuin's George Orr from "Lathe Of Heaven" crossed with Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim from "Slaughterhouse-Five". There are probably other parallels, but these are the first ones that popped into my head. Oh yeah, here's another: Bradbury's "A Distant Thunder".
I'm not going to hand out a lot of spoilers about "Frequency", and that's all right, because the story is well told, and weaves back and forth in time so seamlessly that it meets itself going both ways. There is a lot more substance to "Frequency" than just the time warping radio discussions. The scene where father and son discover their new and seemingly impossible reality across the chasm of three decades is genuinely touching. There is no scarcity of tense moments either, as father and son team up to try and solve a thirty year old string of serial murders.
The essence of the ending however, is telegraphed from early on, and should come as a surprise to no one, unless they spent half the moovie standing out in the lobby trying to decide between popcorn and nachos, in which case, they would be just as well off at QuikTrip.
I liked "Frequency", an interesting blend of science fantasy and drama. Director Gregory Hoblit doesn't rush things, and lets the characters develop naturally. When the story begins to turn, he picks up the pace and lets the audience play along on the whodunit. (Even after you know "who", the time warp makes it a bit tough to figure out "how", and sometimes "when" and "if".)
Three cows for "Frequency", but just between you and me, my cows wanted the Cubs to win in '69.
