Product: Frequency (2000)
Rating: 5.0
A Great Ride
I remember one review that described Frequency as intended for people who thought Field of Dreams was good, but really could have used a serial killer. It's a flip comment, but it actually gets to the core of the movie pretty well. There's the exploration of the father-and-son relationship between Frank and John Sullivan across the decades (and the fact that Quaid and Caviezel can put that relationship across without appearing together on screen is quite the accomplishment), and there's the cop-suspense story about the hunt for a serial killer preying on women. The stories are handled with care, and for the most part the script does a good job of establishing the rules of its fantastic premise and sticking with them. (There are a few slipups, as the screenwriter notes on one of the two commentary tracks.) Stories that involve altering the timestream almost always end up sinking under the weight of paradoxes, and Frequency does to an extent, but for the most part the film holds up. And because it has that emotional core to fall back on, one or two imperfections in the plot can't detract from it.I'd give the movie itself 4 stars; the fifth comes from all the extras that New Line packs onto this disc, including two commentaries, a copy of the shooting script, and various storyboards and other effects info. This one is worth spending some time with.