Plot holes don't spoil Frequency's suspense

All science fiction starts with one question: What if...? What if mysterious spores from outer space land on earth and produce pods that can replicate humans?(1) What if an orphan were raised by a totally alien race?(2) What if the next generation were so far evolved beyond this one there was no chance of communication?(3)

Frequency, then, might be considered science fiction, because it begins with the premise: what if sunspot activity opened a channel into the past and allowed radio waves to pass through. Oddly enough, even though science fiction quickly turns into science fantasy, this movie still has enough action and edge-of-your-seat suspense to make it worth watching some rainy Saturday night.

Detective John Sullivan (James Caviezel) never recovered from the death of his fireman father, Frank (Dennis Quaid), when he was six years old. One night, to entertain his best friend's son, John charges up his father's old ham radio. Coincidentally, (and these coincidences are the one gaping flaw in the film) heavy sunspot activity has produced an intense aurora borealis for the first time in thirty years--and suddenly John is talking to his father.

The next step is fairly predictable. With his knowledge of the circumstances of Frank's death, John prevents it and changes history. Happy ending, right? Of course not, we're only half an hour into the movie. Suddenly, John's mother, Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell) disappears from all his photos. The next day he finds out why. In the new time line, Julia becomes one of the victims of a serial killer who preys on nurses, and John and Frank are forced to fix the damage they've done by tracking down the killer.

SF purists notwithstanding, this kind of genre mixing isn't new. Asimov was mixing science fiction and murder back in the fifties with The Caves of Steel and its sequels. The fact that Frequency is essentially a cop movie with SF elements doesn't detract from its overall impact. Of course, it would have been nice had writer Toby Emmerich (his writing debut) and director Gregory Hoblit (Fallen, Primal Fear) made a little more effort to have the science right, but the machine-gun action and tight editing keep the story moving fast enough that the two glaring contrivances need to get to the end are only momentary glitches.

And, no, I'm not going to tell you what they are. I wouldn't want to spoil all the fun for blooper addicts.

Overall, the performances are also fairly good, although Cavieziel does tend to seem a bit too obsessive for comfort. On the other hand, he never lets it get completely out of hand, which

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