FREEJACK (1992)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

I read this movie's source novel-- Robert Sheckley's 1959 IMMORTALITY INC.-- many years before three writers, including Ronald "ALIEN" Shusett, adapted it into FREEJACK. Thus I have no observations about resemblances between the book and the movie. I think it's interesting that another SF-writer of the period, James E. Gunn, wrote THE IMMORTALS three years later-- the source for the IMMORTAL teleseries-- and that this echoes some of the same concerns about the tendency of nasty rich people to monopolize new discoveries about health improvement.

Most of FREEJACK takes place in the far-off future of 2009, but the story of protagonist Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) commences in 1992. Furlong is a skilled race-car driver, but though he seems set for a major win-- not to mention romantic success with his girlfriend Julie (Rene Russo)-- he crashes and supposedly dies to all living in 1992.

However, Furlong's body has actually been pulled into the future of 2009. (How come the 1992 coroners didn't remark on the absence of the body in the burned automobile?) Evil body thieves known as "bonejackers" want to take Furlong's body and sell it to the rich people who rule this irredeemably scuzzy future-America. The bonejackers are attacked by a team of mercenaries led by Victor Vacendak (Mick Jagger), but despite all the shooting and car-ramming, Furlong gets away, thus becoming a "Freejack" and thus giving the movie its title.

It takes a good while for Furlong to figure out that he's stuck in the future, but he also finds out that his girlfriend Julie is still around. Moreover, she works for the same corporation that employs Vacendak, and that multinational monster is divided between its aging owner McCandless (a pre-Hannibal Anthony Hopkins) and a scheming subordinate (Jonathan Banks). Furlong finds Julie but she thinks that some 2009 body-thief has hijacked her dead lover's body, so it takes some time to convince her. Then, given that the two lovers don't have any way to resist the vast forces of the McCandless Corporation, they have to resort to some means of trickery in order to triumph.

FREEJACK is generally derided, but for its first half, it does a decent job of showing Furlong's confusion as he's thrust into a nightmare future. However, the latter half of the film descends into a farrago of routine cliches, with the characters played by Banks and McCandless proving particularly tedious. I suspect the reason this merely average piece of SF-action gets such bad press is that the mercenary Vacendak, who's supposed to be an honorable warrior, is essayed by Jagger, who is unquestionably terrible in the role. FWIW, Estevez does have decent chemistry with Russo, so their upbeat ending is one of the movie's few charms.