Frequency

FREQUENCY is not a great movie, but it has a great core and two central performances that sell it.

Here’s the setup: through the magic of sunspots and HAM radio, NYPD detective John Sullivan finds himself able to communicate with his father, NYFD firefighter Frank Sullivan. Where John’s sitting, it’s 1999. Where Frank’s sitting, it’s 1969. Frank doesn’t believe that it’s his son on the other end of that radio transmission. But when John tells his father all about the fire he’ll fight the next day, and about how he’ll die in it unless he goes against his instinct and zigs when he’d normally zag, Frank’s intrigued. The next day, of course, the son’s prophecies come true and the father believes.

OK, and this is where the movie gets me. Frank comes home, kisses his wife (who tells him she heard he had a close call), and goes upstairs to look in the now 7-yr-old son who, 30 years in the future, will save his life by warning him yesterday. Dennis Quaid, who plays Frank, looks at the sleeping child with an expression that captures everything I feel when I look in on my boys, then adds appreciation and respect for the man this boy will grow up to become. He goes downstairs, contacts his son on the magic radio, and tells him he loves him. “I love you, too, pop.” Then, in the 1969 timeline, the boy comes downstairs, half asleep. Quaid tells him to get dressed: tonight, together, they’re going to master the challenge of riding that bike once and for all.

Waterworks, I’m tellin’ ya. Waterworks. I get choked up even writing about it. Yeah, there’s this whole plot about a serial killer (and really, what ‘90s movie didn’t work a serial killer in there somewhere) and the unexpected consequences of messing with the timeline and chasing and shooting and all that stuff. There’s also a lot of time travel hokum that’s basically just asking the audience to believe in magic and go with it. But the core of FREQUENCY, the love between a father and his son and a boy and his dad, resonates so powerfully with me that I overlook the weaknesses and spend all my time locked into the performances of Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. What man doesn’t want to be the father Dennis Quaid is in this movie? What man doesn’t want to have the father Dennis Quaid is in this movie? What man doesn’t want his son to grow up to be the kind of guy Jim Caviezel is in this movie?

This picture works, and it speaks to me in a deep and powerful way. Whenever I need to test to make sure the plumbing still works, I need only to spin this one up to make the water flow. FREQUENCY may not be a great movie, but it hits its mark.

Deja Vu

I liked DEJA VU well enough, but I never lost track of time and I never got swept away.

DEJA VU should be the kind of movie that I go for: a thriller with a science fiction twist. It has a clever script, a likeable cast, and a healthy respect for the laws physics (not that it lets those laws get in the way of the story, but it does at least tip its hat to them). It's script is of the type whose scientific genius, when calling for more power for his time-travel gizmo, shouts, "I'm gonna need more cowbell!" It stars the reliable Denzel Washington, who really needs to do a romantic comedy for a change, and noted time travelling veteran Jim Caviezel makes a fine, if rather one-dimensional, foil. Its understanding of the physical universe struck me as plausible, which is rare for a time-travel movie, but there's something about it ...

I never really bought Washington as an ATF agent with an expertise in explosives. I was ready to, but then the film uses him as the audience surrogate for the exposition about time-warping device. By forcing him to ask dumb questions and come off as anti-intellectual, the film makes him dumber than he could be and still do his job. Additionally, I never felt for the distressed damsel, a woman whose sole character trait appears to be that she looks good in underwear. Finally, the movie itself jumped and danced and exploded so much that it kept reminding me that it was a movie and not a portal into its particular sliver of space-time.

My God: what's happening to me? I'm digging movies about the Queen of England's bad week more than movies about stuff blowing up. Before I know it, I'll start listening to soft rock.