Freelance (2023)
Not to be mean or anything, but I don’t have high expectations of John Cena and never have. While I have nothing against the guy, he’s Mr. Meme, and once upon a time gamers liked yelling his name while playing Geometry Dash (Do they still do that? I don’t know). Anyway, I went into Freelance with what I hoped was an open mind. Well, that and I wanted to see Christian Slater. And the movie was free.
Mason Pettits is a former Special Forces op whose squad’s helicopter was blown out of the sky when they go into the fictional country of Paldonia to take out Presidente Venegas, a ruthless dictator who is up to no good.
Mustered out because of his back injuries, Mason is now a lawyer with a beautiful wife, Jenny and daughter, Casey and a seemingly great life. He’s miserable, though. He and Jenny are on the brink of divorce.
Then Mason gets a call from his former commander, Sebastian, who now owns a private security company and who tells Mason he’s got a job for him: A controversial journalist, Claire Wellington, is set to interview Venegas and needs protection. Mason’s reluctant at first, but finally agrees, and finds himself in the middle of a military coup.
As for Venegas, he’s not a bad fella. There’s definitely more to him than meets the eye, not the least of which is his keeping the real baddies at bay.
The question is, how long did my mind stay open?
About thirty seconds, give or take a few, because Freelance makes a terrible first impression. We see everything from Mason’s point of view in the opening credits, and not only are we on the receiving end of a drunk woman projectile vomiting, but a baby flipping us a bird.
Isn’t that lovely?
There’s no way around it: Most of these characters start out unlikeable. Mason is a mean, ungrateful jerk, Jenny is caustic, and Claire is an unreasonable diva with no sense of humor. Sebastian is the only decent human around until Mason and Claire make it to Paldonia, where, again, they find Venegas to be an affable fellow.
It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when a movie’s two main characters have to take civility lessons from someone who’s supposed to be a ruthless dictator. Granted, the benign dictator arc has been done before (Arch Oboler’s radio play, Bathysphere is a great example), but everything in Freelance is so ham-fisted that I didn’t care.
Plus the movie is predictable as all get-out. We know Mason’s not going to turn down the job. We know there’s going to be a high body count. We know Mason is either going to end up liking Claire on some level or garotting her.
There are too many plays on the credibility, too. Like, kudos to Claire for filming the final showdown, but by the third act I had to wonder when and where she got the time to charge her iPhone. And one of the characters wears a bulletproof suit that he doesn’t tell anyone about until the eleventh hour even though it would have been helpful to know earlier on.
The lady sitting next to me in the theater fell asleep. I caught a few winks myself. Neither one of us missed anything. I defy anyone who sees Freelance to remember it the next day beyond the barest plot details. I sure didn’t.
Freelance is currently in theaters. Rated R.
My grade: F
Principle Cast: John Cena, Allison Brie, Juan Pablo Raba, Christian Slater, Alice Eve, Marton Csorkas, Julianne Arrieta, Molly McCann, Daniel Toro, Sebastian Eslava, Roberto Cano.
Directed by Pierre Morel.
Written by Jacob Lentz.