Radio gaga

>> Frequency warns of the perils of interfering with the past

by MATTHEW HAYS

In Frequency, thirtysomething cop Jim Caviezel is haunted by childhood memories of his father's death. In flashback, we see firefighter pops (Dennis Quaid), some 30 years ago, heroically battling a blaze. The fire takes his life, in mid-heroic act. Caviezel's memories of his father are so very sweet; director Gregory Hoblit films the whole thing with a shampoo-commercial aura. This family was so happy until fire took dad away.

If there's one thing Caviezel would change about his life, it would be to go back and stop his father from dying in that blaze. One night he has his wish. He comes across an old ham radio of his late father's and begins to listen. Who should be on the other end listening, but his dad, caught in some weird frequency from exactly 30 years ago! (None of this is really explained in any detail, but--what a relief--the screenplay indicates the frequency-across-time thing is a result of the aurora borealis).

After convincing his father that indeed he is who he says he is, Caviezel warns him of the impending danger of tomorrow's firefighting ordeal. Quaid takes his son's advice, and sure enough, he manages to save the day while saving his own ass at the same time.

But Caviezel's intervention into the past means his present world has changed. Indeed, his father's survival has altered a great deal. Instead of dying in the blaze, Quaid would die of cancer some two decades later. Caviezel's former girlfriend no longer recognizes him and Mom is nowhere to be found.

Yes, this is starting to sound like that classic episode of the original Star Trek series, "City on the Edge of Forever." That's the one where Kirk and McCoy travel back in time to the pre-World War II earth, only to find they both fall in love with the same woman (Joan Collins). Spock, always the logical one, says that Collins will die, but if they save her life, she will go on to hinder the Allies' commitment to war, assuring Hitler world domination. Altering the past, the episode warned, had its built-in perils (I know, I know, my knowledge of this bit of trivia thrusts my geek quotient somewhere around that of the comic book peddler from The Simpsons).

Anyway, that's also the ongoing premise of Frequency. Caviezel continues to attempt to alter his family history through conversations with his father 30 years ago. Since the plot possibilities are entirely open and endless, Frequency conjures up some more-than-reasonable suspense in its last act (involving a murderer who stalks the family). But Hoblit takes some disastrous turns, dragging the suspense down with far too much ultrasentimental, family-values pap. That a son would long for his late father is a given. To add this much sentimentality was not a given, but a choice--and a bad one. :

Frequency opens Friday, April 28