Line #6 Film/Frequency


1	%% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
2	[[quoteright:312:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frequency_2000.jpeg]]
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4	''Frequency'' is a 2000 American science fiction thriller film directed by Gregory Hoblit and written by Toby Emmerich.
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6	[[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCityCops NYPD]] detective John Sullivan (Creator/JimCaviezel) is the adult son of a firefighter, Frank (Creator/DennisQuaid), who tragically died on the job when John was a child in 1969. John discovers that during the aurora borealis in 1999 he can use his father's old [[UsefulNotes/TwoWayRadio ham radio]] to talk to him exactly 30 years in the past. Using his knowledge of the past thirty years, John changes history, saving Frank from dying in that fateful accident. They soon discover, however, that changing the timeline has drastic consequences. Seems a {{serial killer}} known as the Nightingale Killer had died in the old timeline – but in the new timeline, John's mother, Julia (Creator/ElizabethMitchell), a nurse, was not called away due to Frank's death, and thus she was able to prevent the killer's death in the hospital. In the erased timeline, the killer claimed only three victims – but in the new timeline he kills ten women, one of them John's mother.
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8	Working across a span of thirty years, John and Frank work together to stop a serial killer, who soon sets his sights on the Sullivans.
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10	In 2016, Creator/TheCW greenlit ''Series/{{Frequency\|2016}}'', a television adaptation of the film; John Sullivan has undergone a GenderFlip into Raimy Sullivan (Creator/{{Peyton List\|1986}}), Frank has been made a cop just like his daughter, and the concurrent timelines are now 1996 and 2016 (only a 20-year separation). Going undercover, he was murdered under circumstances which ruined his reputation and left his widowed wife and daughter alone and confused. The rest of the plot seems to be roughly the same as the film for now, albeit with Frank, having survived his assassination attempt, looking into the who's and why's of his murder.
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12	Not to be confused with the obscure RhythmGame [[VideoGame/{{FrequencyHarmonix}} of the same name.]]
13	----
14	!!This film provides examples of:
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16	* AnachronismStew: During the scene when Frank climbs out of the water after thinking he [[spoiler:killed the Nightingale murderer]], there is a boat with an Evinrude outboard motor. The motor is a 1999 model, but this scene in the movie takes place in 1969.
17	** A very small one, but when Frank hides from Shepard at a bayside dock in 1969, Shepard's POVCam pans over the Manhattan skyline with the Twin Towers visible on the far left of the frame for a split-second. The Twin Towers weren't fully completed until 1972 and construction for either tower wouldn't have been that tall in October of 1969.
18	* ArcWords: "I'm still here, Chief." Appears in contexts ranging from Frank assuring little Johnny that he's still supporting him on his bicycle to [[spoiler: Frank showing up in the present--having quit smoking to make sure he lived that long--to save adult John from Shepard.]]
19	* AwardBaitSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wXSrMN6_jU When You Come Back To Me Again]] by Music/GarthBrooks.
20	* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler: John's father rescuing him in the present.]]
21	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:John saving Frank in the past gave the Nightingale a couple more victims than he would have had, but his identity is exposed and his serial murders are definitively ended, with both Frank and Julia surviving to be alive with John in 1999, along with perks such as Gordo becoming a millionaire and John's relationship with Samantha being renewed.]]
22	%%* BrickJoke: Yahoo.
23	* ButterflyOfDoom: John manages to send a message back in time and save his father's life. However, because of this change, his mother, who was a nurse, never left the hospital to make funeral arrangements and so was on duty to save the life of a man who would've died. This man turns out to be a serial killer who kills the mother and is now still at large in John's timeline. [[spoiler: Unusually for the trope, he fixes that too, eventually, along with fixing everything that was wrong with his life.]]
24	* CareerEndingInjury: John mentions that he had to give up baseball due to an injury in senior year.
25	* ChekhovsGun: During the climax, John's gun ends up sliding across the room. A few scenes later he and the killer [[GunStruggle fight over it]].
26	** Additionally, when rediscovering the ham Radio in 1999, a shotgun is pulled out of storage. [[spoiler: This shotgun is later used in the climax in 1969 to blow off the Nightingale Killer's hand. ]]
27	* ChekhovsSkill: [[spoiler:The knowledge Frank gains from John about 30 years worth of baseball surely comes in handy later.]]
28	* ChronicEvidenceRetentionSyndrome: The Nightingale Killer had a box with trophies and newspaper clippings, stashed in a hidden compartment in a closet in his apartment. Once John identifies the killer in 1999, [[spoiler: he tells his father (in 1969) about Shephard and explains that when the FBI searches his place (John instructs him to tip them off anonymously), they'll find them since the police knew that the killer always took mementos.]]
29	* CoincidentalBroadcast: During his talk with Frank's wife at a restaurant, Satch notices the game on TV which leads him to [[TrustPassword believe Frank's story]].
30	* CreepySouvenir: The necklaces that the killer collects of his victims.
31	* DaChief: Satch, modern-day John's boss and his Dad's best friend 30 years prior.
32	* DelayedRippleEffect: Averted. All past changes affect the future "instantly" via MeanwhileInTheFuture. However, the writers managed to conserve the drama by setting the murder of the mother in 1969 a couple of days ahead giving the heroes time to find the killer.
33	* DramaticGunCock: At the end, before [[spoiler:Frank shoots the killer]] with his rifle in the present timeline.
34	* ElectricityKnocksYouOut: The Nightingale killer tracks Frank to a police station interrogation room just as Frank sets off the building's fire sprinklers. When the killer steps through the door, Frank throws a stripped live wire into the puddle he's standing in, shocking him into unconsciousness while Frank escapes. Ironically, the killer is woken by the sprinklers about a minute later and gives chase.
35	* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Horribly subverted. [[spoiler:Not even Shepard's own ''mother'' was spared from his killing spree, just because she was also a nurse]].
36	* ExactlyExtyYearsAgo: The time gap between past and present comes to exactly 30 years.
37	* FrameUp: The killer steals Frank's driving license and places it at the crime scene to frame him for the murder of Sissy Clark.
38	* FromBadToWorse: John gets quite the surprise the day after saving his father when he finds out that there are seven more victims in the Nightingale killings than there were pre-changing history. The killer was never caught. And one of the victims was John's mother (who unknowingly saved the killer's life in the new timeline). Cue HalfwayPlotSwitch.
39	* GoingColdTurkey: How Frank Sullivan apparently quits smoking [[spoiler:in order to save his son in 1999]].
40	* GroinAttack: Frank punches the killer in the groin when they fight at the night club's toilet.
41	* GunStruggle:
42	** When Frank and the killer fight over the gun in the harbor basin.
43	** In the climax, John and the killer struggle to get hold of John's gun when the killer's weapon has run out of ammunition.
44	* HalfwayPlotSwitch: Goes from a touching story about a son reconnecting with his dead father into a SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong thriller. And it works.
45	* HeroicFireRescue: Frank initially dies in the line of duty while saving a young woman from a warehouse fire. But John's advice makes him and the victim survive.
46	* HollywoodCB: John and Frank can communicate via their ham radios without keying the microphone to speak. This is handwaved by the radios being magically connected via the [[SpaceIsMagic aurora borealis]]. This "easy talk" setup is necessary to ensure that the climactic fight scenes can unfold without losing the radios connection.
47	* HumanShield: During the climax, the killer uses little John to keep Frank from firing at him.
48	* ICanSeeYou: Initially Frank believes this to be happening when talking to a weird guy on a shortwave radio who tells him that he just burned the table. Actually, the weird guy is Frank's son thirty years in the future and he knows about the accident because a 30-year-old burn mark has just appeared on the table he is sitting at.
49	* ItsPersonal:
50	** Once Nightingale starts to go after John's mom, it is so on.
51	** He may not 100% know what's going on, but [[spoiler:The Nightingale]] knows who to blame:
52	--->[[spoiler:'''Nightingale:''']] My turn to steal ''your'' life away.
53	* KillerCop: [[spoiler:The Nightingale Killer is a SerialKiller of women who turns out to be a cop who was originally a respected one in the original timeline and a DirtyCop in the revised one]].
54	* LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard: The way Frank uses his firefighting knowledge to rig electrical wiring, a metal door, coffee, a spraycan and a lighter smacks of this.
55	%%* MamaBear: Julia
56	* MeanwhileInTheFuture: The effects of the temporally-displaced conversation between father and son don't take place all at once. Although it is quite inconsistent -- the speed of some actions in the past seems synced to the speed of the effects appearing in the present, while others can take only a fraction of a second in the past but the effect in the present takes much longer. Notable examples:
57	** A sentence written in the past appearing in the present letter-by-letter.
58	** In one scene, the bad guy gets his hand blown off with a shotgun, meanwhile his 30 years in the future counterpart is shocked to see that same hand wither away into a nub while strangling his original opponent's son.
59	%%* NeverGotToSayGoodbye
60	%%* NiceJobBreakingItHero: See ButterflyOfDoom, above.
61	* NiceJobFixingItVillain:
62	** [[spoiler:Shepard]] leaving his fingerprints on Frank's wallet allows John to identify him as The Nightingale.
63	** [[spoiler:1999!Shepard saying "Time to die, Sullivan!" to 1999!John gets picked up over the radio in 1969, distracting 1969!Shepard long enough for Julia to get the jump on him and Frank to shoot his hand off. Not only that, but Frank seems to have also heard it, letting him know where and when in 1999 to finish him off.]]
64	* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Julia (unknowingly) saved the Nightingale Killer from dying of medical error, and he repays her by adding her to his ''[[SarcasmMode lovely]]'' list of victims.
65	* OhCrap:
66	** The look on Frank's face when [[spoiler:Shepard corners him in the police station]].
67	** Shepard also has a facial version [[spoiler:in 1999 when his hand starts shriveling up... [[DelayedRippleEffect after Frank blows it off in 1969]]]].
68	*** Which continues when [[spoiler:Frank shows up in 1999, ready to finish the job]].
69	* OutrunTheFireball: The ActionPrologue established Frank as a bold firefighter. He saves a victim from the sewers and then has to escape a fireball propagating through the tunnel.
70	* ParallelConflictSequence: The climax in which John and Frank each fight the killer in their timeline.
71	* PhoneCallFromTheDead: The plot involves the main character's ability to communicate through time with his long-dead father through a ham radio.
72	* PortalToThePast: Though it can only transmit sound, it gets a lot of creative use.
73	* ReverseWhodunnit: The main characters find out who the killer is fairly early on...the problem is how to prove it to the cops, with evidence the cops will actually believe.
74	* RippleEffectIndicator: Throughout the movie. Most notably are the changing photographs and newspaper clips. There is also the nicer appearance to the decorations in the house at the end.
75	* RippleEffectProofMemory: After changing the past, John discovers that he remembers both the old timeline ''and'' the new one.
76	** Averted with [[spoiler:Shepard]]. His brain should have been going ''nuts'' with deja vu and new timelines while he's fighting with the Sullivans in their respective time periods. Or so you'd think. [[spoiler:Notably, neither Shepard were paying attention to the radio until 1969!Shepard heard 1999!Shepard and 1999!Shepard heard 1969!Frank near the end of the fight. After they became aware, 1999!Shepard ''did'' notice the changes--much to his own shock--but just didn't have time to process them.]]
77	* SanDimasTime: 1969 time and 1999 time seems to be hooked up and run concurrently during the duration of the ''aurora borealis''. Possibly the best-portrayed example in movie history. A prime example would be the climax in which [[spoiler:Frank shoots off the killer's hand]]. It is made to look like JustInTime to prevent the killer from offing John in the present. In reality Frank would have had 30 years to do that. In fact Frank does take TheSlowPath and eventually [[spoiler:rescues John from the Nightingale Killer but only [[BigDamnHeroes in the last possible moment]].]]
78	%%* SerialKiller: The Nightingale Killer.
79	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The film is an extremely satisfying complete embodiment of this idea.
80	* SkeletonKeyCard: Frank tries to get into Sissy Clark's apartment with a Mastercard. [[spoiler:It works, but he's too late for her.]]
81	* SlowMotionDrop: Frank's helmet hits the pavement when the warehouse building explodes. This is a technique for firefighters in impossible circumstances, as a last-ditch call for help.
82	** Also, a highball glass slips from John's hand when the timeline resets during Frank's rescue from the warehouse fire.
83	* SlowMotionFall: Frank does a slo-mo fall out of a burning building into the Hudson River, followed by his helmet bouncing on the pavement.
84	* TheSlowPath: Everyone from '69, obviously, but the gold medal has to go to [[spoiler:the Jack Shepard of the final timeline. After getting his ass kicked and his hand completely blown off by Frank, he then runs away and goes into hiding for ''thirty years'' before returning to the Sullivan house in 1999 to try to kill John. Though it also be handed over to the runner-up Frank, who knew to come back to the house by then so he could take down Shepard for good and save John.]]
85	* SpaceIsMagic: The radio connection to the past is made possible by incredible strong sun storms that have created an aurora borealis above the city. [[note]]The 2016 series uses [[LightningCanDoAnything a lightning surge]] instead to establish the connection.[[/note]]
86	* TelepathicSprinklers: Frank does this to divert attention when he escapes the police station. He triggers the sprinkler in his interrogation room which then turns on all sprinklers on the floor.
87	* TimeTravelForFunAndProfit: John drops a hint to his perennially unlucky friend to invest in Yahoo when the company gets created. The epilogue shows that he did just that.
88	* TimeyWimeyBall: The movie is one big Timey-Wimey Ball. You've got the son talking to the dad on the same ham radio, and even the whole "changes happen in sync with each other" deal. The first time John changes history and saves his father, he suddenly has memories of both timelines, which is promptly dropped for the rest of the film as from then on he only has memories of how things originally happened.
89	* TrustPassword: Frank learns through John's future description of the ongoing 1969 World Series and the warehouse fire that John is indeed his son in 1999. Frank, in turn, uses the World Series knowledge in order to convince his cop friend that he's telling the truth about John and that [[spoiler: he's being framed for the Nightingale murders.]]
90	* UnbelievableSourcePlot: Frank can't warn murder victims in advance when his source of information is time traveling radio transmissions.
91	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: It's never shown what happened to [[spoiler: Shepherd's father, especially in the final timeline. One can only assume he died of heartbreak upon learning about the awful truth]].
92	* TheWindowOrTheStairs: Frank died in a burning building because he found himself in this situation (one corridor in fire, another with just smoke) and picked the easy way. When John tells him he has to go the other way, Frank goes through the fire, which leads to a faster way out of the building.
93	* WriteBackToTheFuture: Used by Frank to get fingerprint evidence to his son 30 years later. Also, to a lesser extent, scratching "STILL HERE" into the kitchen table.

Context Film / Frequency