Freejack (1992)

Auto racer Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) has a horrible crash in front of his girlfriend Julie Redlund (Rene Russo). He is kidnapped by Victor Vacendak (Mick Jagger) at the moment of impact and transported into the future known as a Freejack. The US is a dystopian crime-ridden world with McCandless Corp as the biggest and most powerful company. The head of the corporation Ian McCandless (Anthony Hopkins) had died and transferred his mind into a vast computer called the Spiritual Switchboard. Julie Redlund is now a high-power executive in McCandless. When criminals attack Victor's convoy, Alex manages to escape. Victor must hunt down Alex for Ian McCandless who has 36 more hours to transfer his mind into a body.This is one of those cheesy 90s sci-fi movies. Lots of money and effort had been spent on making the cars look futuristic. It mostly leaves them looking cheesy. The whole thing is a bit of cheese fest. Mick Jagger is interesting as a villain but he never stops being Mick Jagger. There is plenty of action and some car chases. It all adds up to something that isn't quite up to par but has some memorable cheese.

I first saw this movie on TV in 2009, seventeen years after it came out and the very year it ended up being set in. Like many others, I ended up feeling it was better than average due to many factors. Yes, the idea of snatching people from the past the moment before they die was covered in "Millenium," but it was done on an individual basis for a different reason, here. The actors were great, particularly Mick Jagger as the relentless bounty hunter. The one thing that really got me was the scene where Emilio Estevez, from 1991, first views the 2009 Manhattan skyline. The scene pans from the Empire State Building south to the Battery and we see that the Twin Towers have been replaced by a single taller building (the top of which ends up as the scene of the film's climax). Has anyone asked how that scene was thought up in 1992? The first bomb attack in the parking garage of the World Trade Center was in 1993, and was intended to bring down both towers by knocking one into the other. This prophetic film moment lifts "Freejack" into the "must watch" category!

I recall this being released in theaters locally; actually, I’d forgotten it was helmed by Murphy (of which I owned but hadn’t yet watched the well-regarded THE QUIET EARTH [1985]) – but I now took care to remedy that. Incidentally, I rented FREEJACK solely on the strength of Mick Jagger’s appearance in it…having just watched him in SHINE A LIGHT (2008), Martin Scorsese’s rockumentary on The Rolling Stones!Anyway, while both of Murphy’s films are science-fiction, there’s really no comparison between them: THE QUIET EARTH is low-key, deliberately-paced, character-driven and thought-provoking, whereas FREEJACK is a fanciful, effects-laden roller-coaster ride (no prize for guessing which I found to be superior)! Interestingly, the latter’s plot line seems to have anticipated THE FUGITIVE (1993) – with Jagger’s character, doggedly in pursuit of bewildered (and bland) time-traveler hero Emilio Estevez (dubbed a “Freejack”), being swayed to the latter’s side by the end of it. Amusingly, the events depicted are supposed to occur next year…but one can’t help feeling that the grimy futuristic look – not to mention the unwieldy cars on display – imagined by the film-makers was a bit too earnestly pessimistic (at least, they got the idea of cloning right)! Nevertheless, we’re treated to the usual relentless bouts of expensive mayhem, mystifying (but entirely hokey) computer-generated wizardry, and all sorts of stereotyped characters (former friends turning traitors, Rene Russo as Estevez’s ex-girlfriend who mistrusts but then accepts his presence in her ‘new’ life, Anthony Hopkins as her employer – an apparently benign tycoon who’s ultimately exposed as the misguided power behind the conspiracy, his vicious underling who harbors notions of taking over from his ‘weak’ boss, etc.) – which renders the whole dreary yet predictable, at once insubstantial and overlong…

There have been many movies about time travel, but "Freejack" is quite unique. It portrays race-car driver Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) getting unwillingly transported to 21st century New York, where some people want to give his young body to aging Ian McCandless (Anthony Hopkins). Estevez, Hopkins, and Rene Russo all do fair jobs with their roles, but it's really impressive seeing Mick Jagger as the villain's henchman Victor Vacendak. I mean, every once in a while, a rock star shows up in a movie, but Jagger is really neat here. Gravitating between menacing and jolly, this must have been a role through which he got some satisfaction.So, this movie does have an interesting plot, but it's mostly worth seeing just to see Mick Jagger as a bad guy. Really cool. Amanda Plummer, John Shea and Esai Morales also appear.