Frequency (2000)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I found this movie very engaging and thrilling. It starts on a slow note, then picks up pace and ends nicely. All the characters played their role well. I liked the portrayal of father and son relationship between Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. Elizabeth Mitchell played the role of a young mother extremely well. Since we expect the film to have an happy end, one could imagine how the movie will turn around and finally ends. But still it didn't spoil the thrill. In my words, "Frequency" is a decent entertainer that will never disappoint you.

Frequency is one of those movies you watch, and when it ends, you wonder what you actually saw. But not because of a bad story. In fact, quite the opposite. With constantly changing and sometimes conflicting timelines, "Frequency" is a thriller you'll want to watch again and again. For it both asks and answers the timeless question: Is it possible to change a past event? Yes, but with consequences. The action starts in 1969, where the Sullivan family-father Frank, mother Julia and son John--exists at the edge of a dangerous life. Frank is a career firefighter, soon to die in a warehouse blaze. After a brief view of the sun with multiple sunspots, time flashes forward thirty years to the same neighborhood. Up in the sky is a quick flash of green light known in the northern hemisphere as the aurora borealis. John Sullivan is now in his mid-thirties. And his girlfriend Samantha is dumping him for being emotionally shut down. Some time later, his friend from childhood Gordo Hersh and his son Gordy, Jr, discover an old ham radio in John's hall closet. When John starts using it, he hears a voice broadcasting over the airwaves. He comes to realize the voice as belonging to his father Frank Sullivan, talking on the same physical ham radio in his time that John is talking in his own. John finds a way to warn his father of the "Buxton" fire, and if Frank just went a different way, he could have saved himself. Which is exactly what Frank does. But with Frank alive, that alters his own timeline. His wife Julia is a hospital nurse who prevents a medical error that would have killed her patient known as the Nightingale killer. He was responsible for killing nurses, and in this new altered timeline, that list now includes Julia, John's mother. So now Frank in his time and John in his must communicate to fix the consequence of changing the past. Before John told his father how to save himself, John was investigating the Nightingale murders, then including three. Now it jumps to ten, and as Frank crosses paths with the killer in his time, trying to stop the murders both he and John know are coming, more complications arise. Frequency most likely named due to how father and son managed to connect across thirty years amid a solar sunspot storm and the resultant northern lights. It involves a series of conundrums that must be overcome for both to survive. As you ride the roller-coaster of action to the climax, you marvel at how well this movie is made. And wish there were more like it.

I love this movie very much. When I searched the movie which is recommended to people who like fantasy genre, I found this movie. I had longed to watch it for a long time, and finally I can watch it. I understand the reason why this movie get a high evaluation from many people. This is not just fantasy movie. Its genre is changed in the movie. we recognize it's a heartfelt fantasy movie including human drama elements at the first time, but from the middle of the movie, mysterious elements appear, and after that, suspenseful elements are added to that, and finally all those genre are mixed and movie ends happily. The son connects his dead father who is living in the past time and they try to change the past. In that scene most of viewers may cannot help crying and that scene makes our hearts so moved. But mysterious and suspenseful elements increase gradually, and we become excited so much. I like the ending of it because every character become happy. Some people might say there is no reality, but all of things which are happened in the story make the ending together. So I think the ending of this movie is excellent.

There are others, but there are 2 film themes that come up over and over in films -- amnesia and time travel -- and almost never work. Amnesia only worked well in one film that I remember -- Ronald Colman's "Random Harvest". "Frequency" is not about amnesia. It is about time travel. And this is that rare movie about time travel that actually works and is rather engrossing.One reason that this works is because they don't try to apply the theme to world-wide events. Instead, they focus on a father and his son over about 3 decades. The father a fire fighter, the son a policeman. As in common with such themes, every time the father and son intervene to change family history, unintended things also happen. So as they fix one thing, something else goes wrong, and then that needs to be fixed. And it all involves trying to solve some serial murders that happened years ago. And how do the father and son communicate over all those years -- the same ham radio that seems to derive special powers due to the aurora. A little far-fetched? Of course. But it works, and it works well. In fact, the way things happen is rather ingenious. And there are points where you may find yourself sitting on the edge of your chair.The father here is played by Dennis Quaid. Typically, I can take him or leave him. But he's very, very good here. The son is played by Jim Caviezel, who is equally as good as Quaid. Andre Braugher is a police detective who gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation that appears to incriminate his friend. Everyone else does their jobs, although none play parts big enough to deserve special mention.This film is done well enough that even though you realize the story is impractical, you find yourself thinking -- yes, that makes sense.