FREQUENCY
By: Steve BiodrowskiDate: Thursday, April 27, 2000
It's commonplace for a film with higher aspirations to avoid genre labelsif, by higher aspirations,' we mean hoping to reach a wider audience than hardcore Trekkies by incorporating elements of romance, action-adventure, or drama. In such cases, the familiar refrain is, 'It's not science fiction; it's a love story [or whatever].' So it's nice to see, in the case of Frequency, that the science fiction label has been embraced so openly. Okay, the press notes call the film a 'science fiction thriller,' but let's not quibble; at least it's a step in the right direction. Now, if only the film itself had not been so frightened of its science fiction elements, we might have gotten a fascinating piece of speculative filmmaking built around an intriguing premise. Instead, we have a moderately entertaining Twilight Zone episode padded to feature length, which hopes to use the emotional pull of a father-son relationship to make us overlook the logical shortcomings.
If you've seen the commercials, you know the basic idea: In 1999, John Sullivan (Jim Caviezel) starts hearing ham radio broadcasts from his father Frank (Dennis Quaid). Frank has been dead for years, but these broadcasts originate from 1969, thirty years earlier. Frank is skeptical at first, but John convinces him by 'predicting' the outcome of a World Series game.
The plot gets rolling when John tells Frank, a firefighter, about the blaze that killed him (or will kill him, depending on which time frame you think of as the present). Forewarned, Frank rethinks the decision that would have proven fatal, and lives. This of course changes the future (or the past), creating a new time line, but Frank still doesn't exist in John's 1999 (apparently, even if the fire didn't get him, cancer from cigarettes would). In order to keep the story moving, the script by Toby Emmerich drags in another element: a serial killer who stalks nurses. Unfortunately, John's mother is a nurse, or rather was. In this new timeline, she was the killer's fourth victim (in the old timeline, the killer stopped after number three, but something has changed to keep him going). Now John, who's a police officer, must send clues back to his father in the past to prevent the death of his mother.
If all this starts to sound a bit convoluted, it is. The essential hook of the story, a son getting a chance to converse with the father who died when he was very young, has a strong emotional pull; it's the kind of thing Rod Serling spun into classic half-hour dramas back in the '60s, but it's not enough to make a whole movie unless the writing is going to delve deeply into the characters and their livesa prospect that no doubt sounded too artsy and abstract to the executives at New Line (of which screenwriter Emmerich is one).
Instead, the script tacks on genre elements in order to up the excitement. It's not enough that a father and son are carrying on a conversation separated by three decades; the father has to be a firefighter. This allows for an exciting opening sequence in 1969 but prevents the real story from getting started for too long; it also provides a nice nail-biting sequence when Frank avoids what would have been his death. Just when that facet is starting to lose its luster, the film shifts to thriller mode, with Frank trying to track down the serial killer in 1969, guided by clues from his son. The feeling that results is one of fear, not on the part of the audience but on the part of the filmmakers, who seem desperately worried about losing audience attention if they don't pile on more and more stuff every minute.
As the thriller elements begin to dominate, the film loses some of the familial feeling that makes the earlier scenes touching. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if not for the fact that the film relies on that emotional attachment in order to get you to overlook the plot holes that emerge. For all the talk of string theory and black holes in the press kit, the film itself has little to say about time travel theory, including the inevitable paradoxes, limiting itself to a brief glimpse of physicist Brian Green being interviewed on TV by Dick Cavett; instead, you're supposed to just surrender to the story and accept what happens because you're so involved with the characters that you want to know what happens to themand science be damned.
I was willing to accept this approach to a certain extent, because in the early scenes, the film laid out its groundwork in a clear fashion. There seem to be parallel time streams running exactly in sync, so that when something changes in 1969, its 'ripple effect' is seen instantaneously in 1999. This is most clearly stated in a scene wherein Frank, temporarily disconnected from his ham radio, uses a soldering iron to burn the words 'I'm still here' into his deskand the words magically appear in 1999 as if burned by invisible means.
But there's an obvious problem here: If John in 1999 becomes aware of changes in the timeline only as they occur to his father in 1969, then John shouldn't know about his mother's death until after it happens in the past. But if mom's dead in 1969, then son and dad can't team up to prevent her death, and there's no third act. So Emmerich abandons his careful set up and opts for a 'whatever' approachthat is, he'll do whatever it takes to keep the story rolling along. So we end up with scenes of Frank quitting smoking midway through the film (SPOILER ALERT) but not turning up alive in 1999 until much later, because that would spoil the surprise ending. Likewise, John and Frank's teamwork results in the killer's identity being revealed in 1969, yet the killer lives on in 1999 so that he can attack John (you have to wonder how he avoided capture during the ensuing three decades, but the film isn't going to tell you).
Okay, ignoring the lapses in logic and the convoluted multiple timelines meant to justify them, is the film any good? Well, it does have a lot going for it. Director Gregory Hoblit milks the fire and suspense scenes to good effect, and Caviezel and Quaid not only manage to engage our interest but somehow establish a kind of screen chemistry, despite almost never appearing in the same shot together. The special effects are also pretty nifty, especially when showing the instantaneous results of changes in the past (look for a nice CGI morph when the killer loses an appendage in 1969).
But even seen through the most forgiving eyes, there are problems. Homicide's Andre Braugher (cast as another cop) is a fine actor, but he fails to convince us as an older version of himself in the 1999 sequences (partly due to weak makeup). Quaid's lower-class Brooklyn accent seems forced; in fact, when we first hear it, we think his character's putting it on as a joke. And the real issue at the center of the story (that John's life has turned out rotten because of his father's death) is brushed over in the most cursory of ways; solving the murder conveniently creates a new timeline in which everything has worked out perfectly, so that none of the dramatic issues facing him at the film's opening (such as his ruined relationship with a girlfriend) need any work to fix them.
No doubt, many viewers will be able to overlook these missteps, because the film offers up wish fulfillment, big time. The story idea is enough to make one wonder 'what if,' and the film itself delivers an answer that uses pyrotechnics and suspense that will hold your attention for the entire running time. The firefighting and police procedural plot points may push aside deeper, more intriguing elements that could have been better developed, but only if you're truly interested in something moreeither speculative science fiction or emotional dramatic contentwill you likely feel disappointed.
FREQUENCY. A New Line Cinema Release. A Gregory Hoblit Film. Directed by Gregory Hoblit. Produced by Hawk Koch, Greogory Hoblit. Written by Toby Emmerich. Cinematography: Alar Kivilo. Music by Michael Kamen. Editing: David Rosenbloom, A.C.E. Production design: Paul Eads. Cosuming: Elisabetta Berlado. Special Make-Up Department Head: John Caglione, Jr. Visual Effects by Rhythm & Hues Studio, Inc; visual effects supervisor, Bill Westenhofer. Release date: April 28, 2000. Rated PG-13. Color by Delux. S.D.D.S., Dolby Digital, Stereo DTS
Cast:
Frank Sullivan: Dennis Quaid
John Sullivan: Jim Caviezel
Jack Shepard: Shawn Doyle
Julia Sullivan: Elizabeth Mitchell
Satch DeLeon: Andre Braugher
Gordo Hersch: Noah Emmerich
Samantha Thomas: Melissa Errico
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