Tue 18 Jul 2023
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: FREQUENCY (2000).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , SF & Fantasy films[6] Comments
FREQUENCY. New Line, 2000. Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, Shawn Doyle, Elizabeth Mitchell, Andre Braugher and Noah Emmerich. Written by Toby Emmerich(?) Directed by Gregory Hoblit.
This’ll grab ya, even as you feel your credulity strained. And we all know how painful that can be.
Quaid and Caviezel carry the story very capably between them as a Firefighter who dies in a warehouse fire in 1969, and his now grown-up Policeman-son in 2000. A freak cosmic storm in 1969 and a matching event thirty years later (ouch!) enable them to contact each other when Caviezel comes across his dad’s old HAM radio just in time to warn him of the upcoming warehouse inferno (Owww!)
But saving Daddy’s life triggers a host of unforeseen consequences involving a serial killer, the murder of their wife/mother, death by cancer, Quaid arrested for murder, and a lot more, all of which have to be fixed and re-fixed by father and son working across time together-yet-apart.
This is the sort of thing that has to be done fast and gaudy to keep the viewer from switching channels in mid-movie disbelief. It also has to be clearly explained each frame of the way for said viewer to keep up with the constantly changing realities. And it also has to offer clear segues from past to present and back again.
That’s an order of beanstalk dimensions, but Frequency mostly succeeds, thanks in hefty part to the skillful editing of David Rosenbloom, who eases things through with graceful and easy-to-grasp transitions. And it’s a good thing we got ’em because the screenplay, though credited solely to Toby Emmerich, shows the work of many hands.
It’s not that there are loose ends — more like dead ends. Plot developments terminated abruptly, characters who arrive late and leave early, and a ninth-ending come-from-behind plot twist that just hasn’t been prepared for.
But somehow I found myself forgiving all this for the sake of some really ingenious ideas, and the pace and style with which Frequency delivers them.
July 18th, 2023 at 11:36 pm
Dan,
Nicely dissected, I think this may be the first film review I recall (by anyone, ever) where the editor is credited! It’s about time!
I don’t, however, wish to see it gives the reader’s cramp my credulity got whilst reading of the plot.
Anywho—I liked the review a lot more than I expect I would the movie.
July 19th, 2023 at 6:17 am
Dan, my wife agrees with you. She liked it quite a bit (and more than I did). By coincidence, I just referred to this when we watched the somewhat similar French streaming series VORTEX. In 1998, a woman was found dead on the beach, possibly an accidental fall, but clearly (to the viewer) a murder. Through a glitch in a pair of Virtual Reality glasses when investigating another murder on the same beach 27 years later (yes, slightly in our future), Insp. Ludovic Beguin (Tomer Sisley) is able to communicate with his dead (but not then) wife and try and change history. But each change they make changes everything – his daughter (a year old when her mother died), his second wife, etc. I think it was Netflix, but can’t remember for sure. Dan, you need to check it out.
July 19th, 2023 at 12:14 pm
Netflix is right. This may be a link yo get you there:
https://www.netflix.com/title/81612863
Looks like it’s
foursix episodes long. I may give it a try tonight myself, or if not, later this week.July 19th, 2023 at 1:11 pm
It is six episodes, Steve. I thought the final one was a bit of a mess, but they are definitely worth trying.
July 19th, 2023 at 5:18 pm
Correction noted, Jeff. Thanks again!
July 20th, 2023 at 8:15 pm
Dan liked it a bit more than me, but it is one of those films where if you give it its head it works and if you fight it it doesn’t. I fought it a bit more than Dan, but I give him all his points and structurally and stylistically it works very well.