Frequency

If you don’t know anything about Frequency, it doesn’t have anything to capture your interest. There are no superstar actors or great action, nor is the subject matter particularly unique. But then there’s its execution. When you watch this movie, you’ll find that you can’t catch your breath. This is due to the intelligent screenply, the very respectable performances by Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid, and the high-quality directing by Gregory Hoblit. If it weren’t for the more open-ended and pessimistic ending, Frequency would have been an exemplary thriller. (11.04.2002)

The famous Ray Bradbury in his short story "A Sound of Thunder" (I recommend it, great stuff) describes how a tourist from the future on one of the expeditions through prehistoric times organized by a travel agency steps out of a strictly defined zone, accidentally steps on a prehistoric butterfly and inadvertently causes a sequence of fatal changes in future events. While Bradbury respected even the slightest organism in the problem of the time paradox, so that his work had even the slightest touch of logic, the creators of Frequency do not bother with any logic at all. All it takes is one radio and the mixing of the present with the past can begin, assisted by suddenly materializing objects and signs on the table. There is even a reanimated corpse, in short, a lot of fun. Here, they simply ignored all those sci-fi lectures about time paradoxes and the consequent distortion. Just fun. It's an enjoyable two hours, but it will make you shake your head :) (09.07.2006)

A proper B-movie with likeable actors and an interesting theme of time travel – a rewarding topic that makes even an ordinary film relatively interesting. The general enthusiasm for this film is a big mystery, but Ok, a whodunit where clues are gathered by two people talking 30 year apart over an old transistor radio, that’s a good one. (25.11.2016)

A polished piece of screenwriting that has only one weakness: a brutally conventional happy ending that fits into the established scheme, which runs on a knife-edge and where the characters are constantly threatened to death, in that pathetic American way that presents the studios' need to deliver to a mass audience a film with an ending and a twist that represent certainty and automatic favour. And that, unfortunately, is too much in contrast with the rest of the story, which presents a catchy, unpredictable and smart play on audience expectations, while managing to retain its specific and dark mood. Still, an unexpected hit without any big stars, far more exciting and imaginative than many expensive genre competitors. 85% (14.01.2013)