Frequency (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Frequency | |
|---|---|
 Frequency DVD cover |
|
| Directed by | Gregory Hoblit |
| Produced by | Gregory Hoblit, Toby Emmerich, Bill Carraro, Hawk Koch |
| Written by | Toby Emmerich |
| Starring | Dennis Quaid, James Caviezel, Elizabeth Mitchell |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | 28 April 2000 |
| Running time | 118 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$31,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Frequency is a 2000 science fiction movie directed by Gregory Hoblit and starring Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid. It was filmed in Toronto and New York City.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The movie takes place during October 1999. John Sullivan (Caviezel), having broken family tradition by becoming a New York City policeman, instead of a fireman — his father, Frank Sullivan (Quaid), died 30 years ago in a warehouse fire, shortly after Game 2 of the 1969 World Series — and going through personal turmoil, discovers his father's ham radio and begins transmitting.
Due to unusual aurora borealis activity, he ends up communicating with Frank 30 years in the past, shortly before the date of the warehouse fire that would kill Frank. John is able to warn his father of the fire that would have otherwise taken his life.
However, by saving his father, a new timeline exists. Previously, his mother, Julia 'Jules' Sullivan (Elizabeth Mitchell), left her job as a nurse at a New York hospital to attend to the funeral arrangements. In this new timeline, she is at work, and saves the life of a man who turns out to be the "Nightingale Killer," who had already killed four nurses, one of which was not discovered until 1999. Now, he goes on to kill a total of ten, the sixth being John's mother.
Thus, using information from 1999 police files on the killings that did not previously happen, John and Frank must work together across the gap of time to find the murderer and save Julia.
[edit] Trivia
- If Frank in 1969 was the same age as John in 1999, who said he was 36, and Julia and Satch were roughly the same age as Frank, then John would have been born in 1963 and the other characters in 1933. Dennis Quaid was 45 years old during filming, Elizabeth Mitchell 29, James Caviezel 31 (making him older than the actress playing his mother) and Andre Braugher 37.
- During the scene at the Buxton warehouse fire, several pieces of firefighting equipment are used that would not have been available to fire departments in 1969, although the fire truck itself is contemporary.
- Although the movie drops several references to being in the Bayside section of Queens, which is in the northeast part of the Borough, the Sullivan home appears to be near the Triboro Bridge, which would place it in Astoria, in the northwest section.
- When the killer steals Frank's wallet in their first confrontation, he reads Frank's driver's license to find his address, then leaves the wallet behind. With the killer's prints on the wallet, John tells his father to hide it in a place where it won't be found for 30 years. The prints are a match for a cop, Jack Shepard. His police identification card gives his date of birth as July 11, 1944, which would make him 25 years old in 1969 and 55 in 1999 (and would make his still-living parents about 80 years old in 1999). But when they fight again, and Frank grabs Shepard's wallet and finds his license, the birthdate is listed as July 11, 1930, which would make him 39 in 1969 and 69 in 1999 (and push his father, now the only living parent in the altered 1999, to at least 90 years old). Shawn Doyle, who played Shepard, was born in 1968, making him 31 when the movie was filmed.
- Shepard's police ID also gives his address as "Bayside, NY," putting him in the same Queens neighborhood as the Sullivans. But his license, while having the same exact street address, gives the location as "Greenpoint, NY," which is in Brooklyn. The scene taking place at Shepard's apartment leads to a confrontation in a river, which is consistent with either neighborhood: Long Island Sound for Bayside, the East River and Newtown Creek for Greenpoint.
- Garth Brooks performs the movie's theme, "When You Come Back To Me Again".
- The ham radio callsign used by Dennis Quaid's character in the movie - W2QYV - belongs to the Niagara Radio Club, based in Lewiston, New York.
- A similar plot was used in the TV soap opera Port Charles in 2001, with Frank Scanlon (Jay Pickett) using a 1973 computer to warn a girl named "Cookie" not to sleep with Scott Baldwin (Kin Shriner) after a high school dance, but this prevents the birth of his present-day girlfriend, Dr. Karen Wexler (Marie Wilson). In typical soap opera fashion, however, the plot gets more convoluted, with the now-never-existing Karen being the only possible blood type for Ariana, who needed a Liver Transplant. And Frank seeks out a voodoo priest to send him back in time to keep Cookie from using the computer to talk to him in the future.
- "Frequency" resonates strongly with many "Quantum Leap" fans as the strong father-son relationship and "time travel" elements are present in both "Frequency" and "Quantum Leap". Also, both fathers smoked and both sons try to dissuade them from this to help lengthen their fathers' lives and ultimately prevent their untimely deaths.
- In at least one of the Dick Cavett sequences, one of the physicists explaining the nature of the sunspots and solar storms is a professional astronomer, Dr. Sten Odenwald. He has several websites, including Space Weather, Ask the Space Scientist, and Ask the Astronomer.
- In several scenes, John is seen pacing while having a conversation over the radio. However, ham radios generally are not equipped with voice operated microphones (and certainly not the old model John was using). Two-way radios do not function like a telephone conference call, they cannot simultaneously transmit and receive, it is necessary to "key" the mike for one party to talk while others listen. When sitting at the desk, either of them plausibly could be using a foot-activated microphone switch, but certainly not while standing and walking while talking.
- The title track of the London-based rock trio Drive Like You Stole It debut mini-album 'Frequency' was inspired by the film.[citation needed]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Frequency at the Internet Movie Database
