Hey folks, Harry here with a review from... BUSTER of FREQUENCY... Now FREQUENCY is one of those films that's trailer just gave me the heeby-jeevies... That uncertain, THAT-COULD=BE-COOL, feeling. And from the sound of these reviews... It is exactly that. So, give it a chance... It sounds like a winner...
Harry--
I just saw a sneak preview of "Frequency" today. I wish I could be more intelligent but all I can say is WOW. This is a marvel of filmmaking. You know how there are some films that you like because they are magical and then there are some you like because they are suspenseful and others because they are funny or heartwarming or whatever? Harry, honestly, Frequency is all of those things.
I have no interest in giving any spoilers so I will give you a few quick points and then get out of your hair. First and foremost, the screenplay is wonderful. A film about a father communicating with his son thirty years in the future and there efforts to solve a three decade-old murder mystery is slightly out there and can easily go the way of bullshit. Toby Emmerich is very careful, if his script introduces something from left field, there is the evidence to make it a plausible occurence. It is a top-notch piece of work.
The characters are deftly wrought and portrayed by the actors so well, they come to life on screen. Dennis Quaid is in fine form. I have always thought he was a fine character actor and as the elder Sullivan he is great. His relationship with Jim Caziezal's character and the younger version of Jimmy Sullivan is touching, to say the least.
Look, I'm not too good at this review thing, as obvious but I just want people to know about this film. With the close of 1999, we movielovers have been served up a lot of junk food. The only movie I really liked was Pitch Black. I saw a sneak of "The Virgin Suicides" and went to the opening of "American Psycho" all within two days and lost a lot of faith in the movies. The best movie time I have had since January 1st was when the local revival house (Brattle Theater, Boston Ma.-- will take on your Drafthouse any day Harry!) screened "Raiders of the Lost Ark". When the credits rolled on "Frequency" I turned to my girlfriend with tears in my eyes. The first thing out of my mouth, honest to goodness Harry, was "That is one of my favorite movies." Without thinking I said it. Maybe you won't put up this review because it seems like a lot of hyperbolizing or just a lot of b.s. That's cool. When you see the movie, you'll know what I mean. Believe me Harry, you'll know what I mean.
BUster
Now, here's Harry Tuttle's review... watch it, because while it is very positive, there are a butt load of spoilers contained herein...
Hey Harry,
I just wanna say that I love the site and think you are the friggin' man. I always wanna send something in, but I never know of anything newsworthy. I live on Long Island, and to tell you the truth, NOTHING happens out here. No test screenings, nothing. The only test screening I've ever been able to get to was "STIR OF ECHOES," which kicked ass. Anyway, I saw the sneak preview of "FREQUENCY" tonite, the new Dennis Quaide movie, and man it blew me away. This is such a great movie, I can't really express to you how much I love this movie. Theres gonna be a lot of spoilers in this review, so be warned. It starts off with a firefighter named Frank Sullivan (Quaide's character) rescuing some dude out of a sewer right before this huge explosion. The date is October 10, 1969. So it keeps going and it shows his whole family, including his son John (later in the movie played by Jim Caveizel, terrible spelling) and his wife. There's like some astronomical phenomenon called Aurora Borellis thats fudging up everything. Frank has this radio that he uses to talk to people with. Cut to thirty years ahead, and John is a cop who is in the middle of a fight with his woman. She walks out on him, and he gets depressed. He goes out for a little while, and when he comes back, his friend Gordo is there with his kid using his stuff. The kid eventually finds the old radio and they set it up. A few hours later, when everyone else is gone, John is somehow able to talk to his dad in the past. They don't believe it at first, but John proves it to him by telling him the outcome of the World Series. John tells his dad that he is gonna die in a fire the next day, and gives him advice on how to live. And he does. But in doing this, he screws everything else up royally. Frank goes to see his wife the next day at the hospital she works at (shes a nurse) and this really fucks everything up quite badly. Theres a killer going around killing nurses, "The Nightingale Killer," and because Franks friend wasn't there to take the wife home because Frank is dead that night, she unknowingly saves the killer's life. So in the future, instead of there being only three dead bodies, there are ten, including John's mother. So, John and his dad try to save her. John, with the police files, tells his father exactly where the killer is gonna be and when whatever is gonna happen. Reluctant at first, Frank goes to save the first girl. Even though he didn't find out who the killer is, He saved the first girl. The next time, the killer makes out that Frank is following him, beats him up and takes his drivers license. Frank goes to the girls house, and is seen by a neighbor, and he finds the girl dead. He goes home, and he tells his son what happened. The son tells him to put his wallet in a spot that it wont be found for thirty years (from the preview) and he does. This gives John the killers fingerprints. It turns out to be a former cop, John Shepard, and not the guy that John thought it was. This makes sense because they just found the bones of another victim of that case right near where the dude lived. Frank is then the main suspect in the investigation, because his license was found with the body. The investigation is headed by his friend Sach, still a cop with his son John. Sach is questioning Frank, and he tells him about how he is talking to his son in the future. He doesn't belive him until he tells him the baseball thing and proves it to him. When Sach goes to talk to Franks wife, Frank is visited by the killer at the police station. He is about to kill Frank when another cop walks in, and he puts his gun away. After he leaves the room, Frank sets up a trap for him. It electricutes him and it sets the fire alarm off in the police station. He escapes and goes to the dudes house. He gets in a chase with the guy, and at its end, Frank has "killed" the bad guy. It was an underwater fight scene, so he thinks the guy drowned. He couldn't be wronger. Frank goes home that night, and is tallking to John, and then, this was so fucking cool, the guy shows up at both their houses thirty years apart, and starts beating them up. They both keep fighting him, and Frank in 1969 shoots his hand off, and you see his hand decay in the future. The guy then leaves the house. Just when in the future John is about to get killed, his LIVING father shoots the guy with a shotgun. Thats pretty much it, they show a baseball game at the end with all the main characters and the movie is over. I left out a lot of details because I can't remember them all. But thats what I remember. This movie was so great and is going to be a huge hit. It will also get one definite oscar nomination for the makeup, which I thought was fan-fucking-tastic. The direction was great, keeping the movie looking interesting throughout and pretty as all hell. The perfromances were all good, and the characters very believable, especially the relationship between Father and son. This is gonna be a huge money maker and a huge summer movie. This is just so entertaining but it has substance at the same time. I was really fucking satisfied after seeing this. Last night I saw the pile of shit that was American Psycho, which I thought sucked all ass except for a few clever scenes. What the hell was that goddamn ending??? Back to Frequency though, this movie kicked more ass then there is to be kicked. I love it. Keep up the good work Harry and all the other people who make this site kick a lot of booty, and I'll write again if I ever have any other news.
We're all in it together,
call me Harry Tuttle
Next up is Mr. Touchdown, who wanted the film to be a little bit better. He has spoilers in the review, says it's a pretty good way to spend an afternoon... you'll see...
Harry -
This is Mr. Touchdown. I've been hanging around for awhile, dropping in on talkbacks and submitting tidbits from time to time under other aliases. But I think I've got my first newsworthy item--I just got back from a sneak preview of the new Dennis Quaid thriller "Frequency." Feel free to use this, but it does contain some spoilers...
The theater marquee doesn’t say anything about the showing, and neither does the ticket window. I almost feel like I’m trying to get into some kind of secret rave when I sidle up and sort of whisper to the girl in the booth, "Uh, are you showing ‘Frequency’ here tonight?" Either they are or I just happened on the right codephrase, because with that I’m in.
The best thing about getting there a little early was being privy to the discussions of my theater mates. The people behind me thought that ‘Urban Legend’ was scarier than ‘Blair Witch’ (OK, right, whatever) and also that ‘American Beauty’ was "sick" (apparently a fairly popular opinion here in the south). Note: ever wonder why crud like ‘Urban Legend’ keeps getting greenlit? Well, wonder no more.
OK, on to ‘Frequency.’ SPOILERS FOLLOW: Dennis Quaid plays Frank, a Queens, NY firefighter, ham-radio buff, and diehard Mets fan, circa October 1969. Thanks to a rare occurrence of Aurora Borealis, his radio somehow picks up transmissions from the future and Frank’s despondent police detective son John (Jim Caviezel, showing more emotion in one scene than he was allowed to in the entirety of ‘The Thin Red Line.’). John is haunted by memories of a father he barely knew (Frank died fighting a warehouse fire when John was just a boy), alcohol, and the breakup of a long-term relationship. When he makes contact with his dad, it’s just two days before Frank is set to die. And oh yeah, there’s a serial killer on the loose. Got all that?
Personally, I haven’t thought much of director Gregory Hoblit’s work to this point. I feel he got lucky when Edward Norton’s performance raised his debut ‘Primal Fear’ above garden-variety suspense; ‘Fallen’ just wasn’t engaging, and the so-called ‘twist’ was a dead giveaway before the credits even finished rolling. But I guess he deserves some credit for continuing to cast Andre Braugher, thus ensuring that Braugher’s yeoman work for all of those years of ‘Homicide’ don’t go completely without reward. Here Braugher shows up in both the present and past as Frank’s friend and John’s detective partner.
‘Frequency’ is at its best when it’s setting up the relationship between John in the present and Frank in the past; John is haunted by the fact that he’s closer to his father than ever before, but still so gnawingly out of reach. As it sets up Frank’s impending demise, the scenes of Frank playing catch with young John have a certain undeniable gravity—I actually felt myself starting to tear up at one point, and that hasn’t happened since the Fighting Irish carried Rudy off the field. But shortly after John gives Frank to ability to avoid his own death, the story starts to buckle under its own weight. It turns out that by saving Frank, the past is somehow altered and the serial killer who mysteriously stopped killing back in 1969 after three victims has, in the new reality, killed ten—including Frank’s wife, John’s mother.
As a pastiche of "Back To The Future" (complete with the changing-photographs trick), "Backdraft," "Field of Dreams," "Ghost," and "Contact," maybe ‘Frequency’ is just guilty of trying to do too much. Now Frank and John have to figure out a way to change the past again. The plot is busily whirring so fast that I got the distinct impression that key stuff was somehow left on the editing room floor in at least two spots, most glaringly when it’s never quite explained how keeping Frank alive allowed the serial murderer to continue on his spree. And it all gets wrapped up in a way (and I do mean WAY) too pat ending that caves in and pours on the sap. For my money, the film would have ended better had Frank and John never quite been able to fully connect—the magical radio connection would have been a poignantly bittersweet miracle, but Hoblit steps up the wrap-up with sentiment guns a blazin’, even tacking some kind of anonymous acoustical bunk to the final montage.
I wanted to like ‘Frequency’ more, I really did. But even though its reach somewhat exceeds its grasp, it tries hard, and that’s fairly rare in big-budget Hollywood. Give it a shot—there are worse ways to spend your time and money—‘Urban Legend,’ for example…
Mr Touchdown
This one comes in from Cinema Joel
Frequency
Grade: A+
The date is October 10, 1969. Firefighter Frank Sullivan narrowly escapes an explosive death in a daring rescue. He returns home to his wife Julia and son John, and they are blissfully happy together. The date is October 10, 1999. Detective John Sullivan's girlfriend has just left him. It is two days away from the thirtieth anniversary of his father's death. Thanks to some unexplained force of nature, the two are about to be reunited. John finds the ham radio Frank used to talk on every night. When he sets it up, he winds up talking to his father on the same ham radio thirty years in the past.
When John effectively intervenes and guides Frank through the fire that erstwhile killed him, it changes the past. It essentially starts a domino effect of altered events. The most dramatic of these events is that mother/wife Julia, a nurse, winds up saving the life of a serial killer who otherwise would have died and killed no more. The killer will thus now live long enough to kill seven more victims, including Julia. John wakes up the next morning after "saving" his father with fresh memories of his mother's death thirty years ago. Now John and Frank team up, trying to work the case in both time dimensions in order to save Julia and the other victims.
With Frequency, writer Toby Emmerich has created the most magical and emotionally powerful story about a father and son since Field of Dreams. And with the superb direction of Gregory Hoblit, the movie matures into a smart and polished film that far exceeds the expectations most audiences will have for it. Personally, I've been anticipating this film for months. I had very high expectations for Frequency - and it still exceeded them.
The direction and editing in the film are terrific. With each major change in the past, Hoblit uses a series of time transitions that show John reacting to the ripple effect on his present. In one specific moment where the past is radically changed, the spiraling frames of the new past circle in John's perception. Hoblit's direction gives us the impression that we are actually looking into John's mind's eye. The camera work for those shots were amazing.
Also good is the thematic use of baseball. Baseball is framed as a bond that the two shared in John's childhood, and so it is particularly moving that it becomes the ultimate truth that solidifies their belief in what's happening to them now. Baseball is used as a tacit metaphor for a rosy colored world. Father and son play catch; an entire neighborhood of families gathers together to watch the Series. These are all somewhat trite images, but Hoblit treats them delicately and with great subtlety. And what might have otherwise come across as heavy handed cliché instead becomes a tender and constant unity between past and present.
There is so much yearning in this film, particularly in John. To be suddenly reunited with the father he lost when he was six years old but to lose his mother as a result... John's emotions are constantly wrought. He is the only one in his time that is aware of the different pasts that transpire through the course of the film. As such, his character is very much the lone ship trying to navigate blindly through the storm that threatens to tear life as he knows it apart. Jim Caviezal turns in a solid, steady performance in this film.
Frequency is a sweet and heartfelt thriller, as bizarre as that sounds. It combines the sentiment of Field of Dreams with elements of Back to the Future and Seven. Really. It seems impossible because these films have nothing in common, but the true strength of Frequency is precisely its ability to play on so many dimensions of filmmaking. It pulls on your heartstrings, but at the same time it's intricately supernatural and conceptual. And all the while you're on the edge of tears, you're also on the edge of your seat as they try to hunt down the killer before it's too late. This movie functions so well on each of these levels, and probably more that I just didn't catch the first time.
In recent years, we've seen the supernatural gain prominence in filmmaking, from X-Files to The Sixth Sense. But never before has the supernatural been used in such an intimate way. Frequency has no ghosts, no aliens, and no superhuman powers. What it does have is the magic to give one family another chance to be together. The scope the supernatural works within Frequency is what makes it so powerful. We're not dealing with saving the world; we're dealing with saving one family. The supernatural has never been this tender before. That's part of the reason Frequency is such a moving film.
Maybe it's true that the past should stay buried in the past. We certainly could not ever have a future if we spent our present fixated on what we could have done differently back then. But Frequency is not meant to encourage dwelling in the past. It is a celebration of family and love in bold defiance of time. It is a powerful testament to the endurance of love and the timelessness of family.
Cinema Joel
