Freelance (2023) has the right ingredients for a good action comedy souffle. We’ve got John Cena and Alison Brie plusTaken director Pierre Morel. Morel can handle action, Brie can handle comedy, and Cena can handle both. But can this film handle the heat and rise to the challenge, or does it collapse in the oven?
Journalist Claire Wellington’s (Alison Brie) career got flushed down the shame toilet for not checking her sources well enough and reporting a false story (How, in this day and age of constant misinformation, does that happen? What kind of story was it? We never find out). When she receives a once-in-a-lifetime offer to interview President Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba), the reclusive tyrant of Paldonia, she jumps at the opportunity and hires Mason Pettits (John Cena) as her own Kevin Costner-style bodyguard. Mason, who is a lawyer-turned-black-ops-merc-turned-lawyer again, hates his suburban life and is ready to jump back into action. When someone tries to kill the president, their trip quickly goes pear-shaped and they have to learn to survive together.
John Cena and Alison Brie are two of my favorite comedy actors, both utterly fearless in their approach to comedy, so I was really excited at seeing them team up for Freelance. Unfortunately, the film’s tepid comedy just can’t match what these two are capable of. There are jokes here and there, sometimes enough to get you to quickly exhale out of your nose, but vocal chuckles are nowhere to be found, to say nothing of full-on laughs or even hearty guffaws. These two are doing the best they can with the script, but there’s just not that many jokes for an action comedy, and what few there are just aren’t that funny.
Outside of the jokes, the story constantly stumbles over itself. There’s a lack of establishment as to who the villains are, and too many scenes of “this guy actually works for/is connected to this guy” to care. Villains chase Mason and Claire for reasons often unknown, given that their true motivation is to kill the president. Mason does have something resembling a character arc, which is appreciated, but it’s dull and you’ll see it coming from miles away.
The action, however, stands out far above the weak, weak script thanks to the decision to use as many practical effects as possible. Screen Rant interviewed director Pierre Morel who talked about how he didn’t use any CGI:
I always like to do the physical effects live because they look better than fake explosions and fake this and fake that. So there’s no CGI. We did almost everything live and I think it shows. It’s an old school way of filmmaking, but the audience is not fooled by CGI things. It’s a different ride.
It’s really freaking refreshing to watch actual cars crash into each other, squibs explode, and tree limbs fall all around as the characters run through the jungle. I will always choose practical effects over watching CGI! As a lower-budget action comedy there’s not that much action, but when it shows up, it’s good.
This is Alison Brie’s first action type role and Morel sings her praises in the interview with Screen Rant, recounting the time when her wardrobe wasn’t quite right for a scene when she and Cena were supposed to be in the jungle for several hours. Her clothes were supposed to be rather dirty, but weren’t. The wardrobe personnel didn’t want to make any changes so Morel said, “She just threw herself on the ground, and started writhing herself on the ground in the dirt. She got up and was like ‘Okay, good. Let’s go.’”
Freelance has most of the ingredients of an action comedy, but the subpar script is like forgetting to add eggs to the souffle. What we end up with is a great director and great leading actors making a movie that’s pleasant, but forgettable and unexciting, background noise.
Time Until Action: ~ 4 minutes you get a teaser, the real Action starts at ~ 25 minutes
Action Rating: 1.5 Sunken Souffles, out of 5
This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!
Disclaimer: Just because I am the Action Flick Chick and love action movies does not mean I condone real life violence in any way. Everyone has their own shit to deal with, be nice to each other.
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