Frequency

The film, Frequency, is based on a preposterous idea, and the film doesn’t even try to explain the reason behind it (It gives you a few shots of Northern Light in the sky, and lets you wonder.). It is used as a plot device to tell the story of time-travel crime drama peppered with a father-son relationship plot.

If you can get past this major hurdle, the film is indeed fun, with Dennis Quaid as the dashing, fireman father in 1969, and Jim Caviezel as his laconic, semi-depressed son in 1999. He’s depressed because his father died on duty while he was five years old. Now, he’s a police officer with a shitty personal life. He lives in his parents’ house and one day discovers his father’s old ham radio. As he tunes in, he gets to talk to his father in the past, just a day before he had died. The son fearfully warns the father about the day he died, and lo, after a five-minute suspense sequence the father lives this time. Great.

This however considerably alters the past as well, and John’s mother is now the victim of a serial killer. Now it’s up to the father-son duo in different time-zones to try and catch the killer.

The film worked for me, if nothing else, for Jim Caviezel. I find him irresistible. Period.