Product: Frequency (2000)
Rating: 3.0
A nice idea, competently executed, but...
"Frequency" might be classified as science fiction, if only because of its basic premise: that a particularly violent episode of sunspots links October of 1969 with October of 1999, or at least, allows a young Queens cop in 1999 to communicate with his father in 1969 by way of a single ham radio. The father had died in a warehouse fire in, you guessed it, October of 1969, and after heeding his son's warning, the timeline is irrevocably altered. The complications that ensue from that alteration, and the attempts of father and son to make right what they have made wrong, comprise the bulk of the film. On a different level, we are treated to a family-friendly vision of life in the city, of the bond between father and son, etc. etc.The premise would be more attractive, and the story more engaging, if the film didn't degenerate into typical Hollywood fare. For example, the father is not only a New York firefighter, but also a heedlessly courageous, manly, all-American firefighter whose daring exploits are worthy of slow-motion camera work. After avoiding his death in the warehouse fire, the "complications" that ensue involve the survival of a serial killer who would otherwise have died with only three victims to his credit--and if there is any more overdone and hackneyed criminal premise in movies today, the serial killer would have to be it.Notwithstanding these disappointments, the inevitable paradoxes of tampering with the past are not resolved very well in this film; as a result of his communications with his father, the son finds that all the world has changed, excepting his memories, which now include not one but _both_ timelines. As the action resolutely approaches the climax, the holes in the plot become bigger and bigger. The willing suspension of disbelief required to remain fully immersed in this film, and not head-shakingly outside of it, was more than I was able to manage. If you do not have such logical requirements, and if typical Hollywood action fare and trite plot elements don't bother you, "Frequency" is worth seeing.