"Frequency" question (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Leigh-Anne and I watched “Frequency” this weekend, and while it wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, it wasn’t too bad. Competently acted, mostly well filmed. Like all time travel movies, it has a lot of threads to keep track of, and does an O.K. job . . .

. . . until the end. In the 1969 timeline, Frank Sullivan shoot’s the killer’s hand off, and he runs away. Um, great, except where did he go for the next 30 years?? He shows up in 1999 trying to kill John Sullivan, who is saved by Frank, who didn’t die of cancer in 1980 after all. So are we to understand that in 1969 he just ran away, and the Sullivans didn’t call the police to say, “Uh, the Nightingale murderer just ran out of my kitchen. Here’s his name and a physical description, and oh yes, he’s missing his right hand. You can probably catch him a few blocks from here.”

We know he didn’t die from trauma or blood loss–he’s alive in 1999. And there’s no way he’d go to prison for killing six women (the three he had already killed at the beginning, plus his mother, plus the girl buried near his house, plus the girl he tried to frame Frank for) and get out in 30 years. And he certainly didn’t go into hiding–he’d need to get that shotgun amputation treated, and ER doctors tend to get a little suspicious about things like that. Besides, the cops already had enough evidence to convict him–Satch saw all the “mementos” in his apartment.

Did the writer and director just totally drop the ball here, or is it me? I’m sorry, but I cannot suspend disbelief enough to ignore a plot hole of those proportions. What the flaming hell happened?

2

Yup, they dropped the ball. There were so many plot holes in that film you could drive a DeLorean through at 88 miles per hour.

FTR, I didn’t like the movie at all. I wanted the Karma Police to show up and arrest the main characters for fucking up the past/present/future, with total disregard for consequences.

3

I assumed the obvious, that he went into hiding for 30 years. Possibly made it onto the Most Wanted list or something.

4

I was too busy saying “Cool!” at the way they morphed his hand off to worry about it; the rest I just took at face value.

The only movies that raise my ire quickly are those that get technically stupid; like one aircraft type getting shot down and another crashing, or an F4 Phantom dropping napalm in a Korean War movie. Sheesh.

5

. . . and then wandered back into town 30 years later, and hung out in a neighborhood bar where people were likely to recognize him. Indeed, where he was probably a regular, since his father must have told John Sullivan where to find him. Yipes. Bad, bad writing.

6

I also assumed that the neighborhood bar scene then wouldn’t have happened either. Everything that happened in the previous 30 years would have been altered after they discovered he was the killer.

7

So then how did Frank know precisely when to walk in and shoot the now old Nightingale killer just as he was about to shoot John?

We know he heard Jack in 1969 about to kill John, and that’s when he took the shot that took Jack’s hand. So either:

A) He was expecting the Killer Jack to show up in 1999 (in which case, I’d have laid in wait with police or at least been better prepared so there would be no struggle ensuing), or…

B) He/they didn’t really expect him to show since he’d disappeared 30 years earlier after he was ID’ed as the killer and shot.

So then, what–are we to believe that Frank happened on the scene by chance at that moment?

Incidentally, if the understanding is that the scene in the bar didn’t happen, then there’s no reason for the living room scene at all. Jack shows up to keep his identity as a serial killer secret. If Frank and his family and the police knew he was the killer in 1969, there’s no reason for him to be trying to keep John quiet. AND further, if it is meant to change that scene into a revenge scenario, Jack had all those years in which to show up, why pick that moment?

And…since we know that John is now SUCH a better person know that he’s had both his mother and father survived to raise him (which what kind of message is that?) and has a wife and child, where were they when John was fighting for his life?

On another note, I indicated to Phil as we watched that I was certain that karma, fate, destiny, whatever would have to keep a balance. Afterall, that seemed to be dynamic they set up in the plot when we learn that his mother is killed when his father is spared. I thought for sure that in order for Frank to save John’s mother, he’d have to trade (sacrifice) his life.

Instead the scales were all out of whack as several extra women were killed (including Jack Shepherd’s mother–which ruined his father’s life as well) and John gets a happily ever after scenario. I guess they just wanted that happy ending.

I still think that Jack Shepherd should’ve poofed from the 1999 living room scene. Everything else in the future seemed immediately effected by the past (like the wallet scene and his hand).

On a final side note, Phil and I were both a little dumbfounded that when we tried to listened to the commentary tracks (DVD) at that point in the film to discern if we were missing something, both commentators (writer and director, I believe?) were busy discussing the morphing effect and MPAA rather than the actual plot. I think that says a lot given the crucialness of that particular plot point.

8

Since Jack was a cop, I don’t think he would have too much trouble flashing his badge in an ER somewhere and getting medical treatment without raising too many eyebrows. And the go into hiding. But as I reread that, it still seems like a stretch.