Robert Sheckley was renowned American author of satirical science fiction. His best known work was short story “Seventh Victim”, adapted into 1965 Italian film The Seventh Victim, which is now considered to be the classic of the genre. Sheckley had less luck with his debut 1959 novel Immortality, Inc., which was adapted by Hollywood into Freejack, 1992 film directed by Geoff Murphy, known as one of the more notorious flops of its time.
The plot begins in 1991 and the protagonist, played by Emilio Estevez, is Alex Furlong, young and promising race driver. During the race that was supposed to be his big professional break he gets involved in a terrible accident resulting in his car being destroyed in explosion. Everyone, including his girlfriend Julie Redlund (played by Rene Russo), thinks he died, but Alex moments later finds himself in a strange mobile operating room where sinister-looking people apparently want to subject him to mind-wiping procedure. He manages to escape and finds himself on the streets on strangely looking, polluted, violent and dystopian New York City. It takes him some time before he realises that the year is 2009 and that he got there thanks to advanced time travelling technology that allows people being brought back from the past in the moments of their spectacularly violent deaths. Since such people, known as “freejacks”, are legally dead, they have no right and their healthy bodies are sought by old and sick mega-rich corporate owners who want to transfer their own minds into them. That makes Alex target of bounty hunters led by Victor Vacendak (played by Mick Jagger). Thankfully for Alex, Julie is now executive in corporation led by Ian McCandless (played by Anthony Hopkins) and he gets in touch with hear and asks for help. In uthe meantime, he realises that some people, unlike Vacendak, wants him dead instead of alive, so he must solve that mystery if he wants keep his body and mind.
Based on the names involved, Freejack had potential of being, if not a genre classic, at least a very good film. New Zealand director Geoff Murphy had couple of decent action films in his filmography, while Roland Shusset, one of scriptwriters, had classics like Alien and Total Recall in his filmography. However, after the premiere Freejack was greeted by hostile critics, indifferent audience and, most importantly, many cast and crew members, including Murphy, tried to distance themselves from the film. Most of critics’ complaints were about non-stop action – car chases and gunfights – that drowns any attempt of sensible plot exposition and character development. Murphy, to his credit, directed those scenes with great skill and sense of rhythm, making Freejack very fast and digestible. The main issue with the film is actually the script, that require too much belief to be suspended from the audience when it comes to speed which technology advances and society changes. Even in early 1990s, it didn’t look that plausible that someone would have time travel and mind transfers at his disposal in less than a decade or two. The only reason for such short time travel was romantic subplot and need for Rene Russo to look as attractive in future version as in the past. The effort was in vain, because Russo and Emilio Estevez, who is mostly bland in his role, lack any serious chemistry together. Another serious problem for miscasting of Mick Jagger (whose then-wife Jerry Hall appears in small role of news reporter), who might be truly iconic rock star but whose acting skills leave too much to be desired. The ending also feature plot twist that even the less experienced viewers could have seen coming, as well as rather uninspired performance of Anthony Hopkins and some cheesy special effects that made Freejack dated even in 1990s. There are few interesting moments, mostly due to talented supporting cast, which includes Amanda Plummer as gun-totting nun and Frankie Faison as homeless man giving protagonist motivational speech. Those, however, aren’t enough to rescue this film from being a large disappointment.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/9278-freejack Critic: AA
