I'm glad I don't work in a video store, for if I did, I'd be stuck with the task of figuring out where Frequency should be filed. Is it a police procedural mystery? a buddy movie? a science fiction movie? just where should it go?

Let's try buddy movie

John Sullivan's (Jim Caviezel) dad Frank (Dennis Quaid) died in 1969 when John was just six, and it's obvious that he's forever ruined for relationships. Our first glimpse of him is as his live-in girlfriend is slamming her suitcase as she moves out; almost exactly thirty years to the day after his dad died. A boy's best buddy should be his dad, Frequency tells us, and John's dad was ripped from his life far too early.

What an incredible opportunity awaits John though, when his lifelong best friend Gordo digs Frank's ham radio out of the closet. The "mother of all sunspots" has fried some universal telecom relay switch, and that ancient box of tubes is strangely able to communicate with itself across the thirty-year gulf between a grown up boy and his doomed dad.

Of course the son and his father can communicate, and John's able to save his father's life in the past by warning him of the circumstances of the death. We are treated to a triptych of slow-motion sequences as John's glass falls from the table, Frank's helmet flies out a third-story window, and his dad cheats death by escaping down a grain chute. Just one question -- why'd Frank throw that helmet out the window in the first place?

Let's try detective

John rises from the table and cleans up the spilled drink carrying not one but two sets of memories: in one, his dad died thirty years ago, in the other, he died of lung cancer ten years past. Mental note to John -- warn dad to stop smoking, though you're too stubborn to quit yourself!

Oops. Now mom's gone, instead, and -- in an incredible coincidence -- John the 36-year-old homicide cop is handling the thirty-year-old string of serial murders in which his mother died... in this more recent reality, that is. So he puts Frank on the case in the past. Since John has all the details of the deaths in front of him, he knows exactly when and where each victim will die, and puts his dad in the way to save them. Seems logical to me that Frank's presence at a murder scene would be a red flag to the 1969 detectives, but John seems to be a little too dense to figure this out.

Frank is, of course, apprehended by the police. Naturally, his best friend (played by a remarkably ageless Andre Braugher) is lead detective on the case -- and what's better, is John's boss in 1999. In the action, the ham radio gets crunched. Darn, no more communication across the gulf.

Well, then, let's try sci-fi

A paradox is not a surgical operating team. No one knows what would happen if we were able to change our past, so the concepts of changing realities are well within my "acceptance" criteria. Frank burns the top of the desk in 1969; the burn suddenly appears in the previously-unmarred desktop in 1999. I'll accept that, though I'm not certain it should be smoking as it slowly appears in 1999. It also tells the audience without a doubt that the past can be changed, and John's able to convince his father of this fact. The look on 1969 Frank's face when 1999 John immediately finds the wallet he hid just seconds ago is priceless.

Well, which one, then?

Is it good sci-fi? Actually, it's pretty good -- but Frequency doesn't spend enough time exploring the temporal paradox questions. Neither does it spend enough energy considering the possiblity of sunspot activity creating such a rift in time.

Is it a good murder mystery? No, it's not quite average. I'd think that a homicide cop in the future would be able to do a better job of directing his agent in the past -- like having him make an anonymous call to an apartment just seconds before the murderer showed up, instead of having him watch the victim all night. Seems incautious to me!

Is it a good buddy movie? This is probably where it should go. Maybe it's just the sentimentality, but Dennis Quaid makes a convincing "great dad" to little John. And when all is said and done, we can see that the Sullivan family unit was solid.

Where Frequency fails

1- It's neither fish nor fowl: No man can serve two masters, we are told; neither can a movie attempt to merge three such different genres. There are too many themes in Frequency for it to succeed. It cannot stand on its own as science fiction, mystery, or a feel-good movie about the love of a boy for his dad.

2- Lack of logic: The turning point of the plot depends entirely on John's ability to tell his dad the exact sequence of events in each game in the 1969 World Series, and -- more to the point -- Frank's ability to repeat those details. Give me a break! I can barely remember who won the Super Bowl eight days ago, let alone details of the game!

3- Those sappy final scenes: After everything has been tied up neatly with a pink bow, are intended to show us that life would be good indeed if we could tailor our own pasts. I already knew that instinctively -- didn't you?



Watch Frequency for some good action fire-fighter scenes, especially when Frank is in the burning warehouse. Don't watch it if you want logic.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older