
FREQUENCY
This sci-fi thriller about a man who speaks with his father
30 years in the past via a short-wave radio is good filmmaking
all around. The story is clever and wildly imaginative; the acting is superb.
The setting is a Queens suburb of New York City in 1969 and 1999 when an unusual
Aurora Borealis dances in the sky.
Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid) is a heroic firefighter, who in 1969, lives with his
wife Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell) and beloved 6 year old son Johnny. Frank is devoted
to his family, spending lots of time with Johnny, teaching him baseball and how to ride
his bike. In his spare time, he's a ham radio fanatic.
Jump to thirty years into the future when the lights dancing over the city reappear. We meet
John Sullivan (James Caviezel), a cop who comes upon an old short-wave radio in a closet.
Shortly after
starting it up, a voice comes over the radio and what we get is an extraordinarily touching
father-son reunion, unlike anything ever seen in films before. Frank, who in John's reality, died
in a warehouse fire many years ago, gets a longer life, albeit a more complicated one, when John begins
to manipulate past events. What John doesn't realize is that one change in the past
automatically affects the future and pretty soon John and Frank are both trying to play
catch up, to fix the dominoes from toppling and changing lives. Tension builds
measurably when the story becomes a murder mystery with both men trying to solve a serial
killer's 30-year long spree.
Lotta says: It's an intriguing premise, one that's supremely well done thanks to the director, screenwriter
and the editor. Frequency is on the right wavelength!
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