Freelance (Movie Review) 2023

Freelance tries to combine action and comedy in a political thriller context. The center of attraction goes to John Cena, who plays Mason Pettits, a Special Forces ex-operative-turned-lawyer. He takes a freelance gig in Pamplona as a bodyguard for a journalist Claire Wellington (played by Alison Brie), who is interviewing the country's ruthless dictator, Juan Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba). Mason’s straightforward assignment turns into a chaos-filled fight for survival when a military coup takes place.

I found the unique aspect of Freelance to be the premise that offers a lot of offensive satire. Starting premises of a repressed ex-soldier being asked to protect a cynical journalist interviewing for an eccentric dictator turned into a fun adventure. Unfortunately, the chaos they end up trapped in once out of their Python land is where I would find genuine humor instead of heart-stopping tension.

But I'll admit though, the movie struggles with execution. Throughout the film, the central premise fails to posses a single tone and constantly fluctuates between mindless comedy and ‘gritty’ action. The intensified comedic reactions from both Cena and Brie as well as their charismatic chemistry helps lift the humor and helps in covering up some of the lapses. Bries unique acting paired with Cena's banter creates room for humor within the film. Juan Pablo Raba’s performance on dictator Venegas is equally entertaining. He provides much needed quirky charm to his otherwise sinister character.

Lentz’s screenplay in a way still shrouds the efforts of the lead actors. Since every aspect is as vague as the other, the central idea is overly simplistic and riddled with cliches and half baked twists that possess little to no creativity. Attempts at political commentary and satire are wishful at best and core themes of the exploitation of power resources without much thought do not resound deeply enough to be appreciated. Despite differing from the his earlier films, where action was profound, more recently directed action by Morel is becoming stripped of any essence that makes action pulse racing.

Only from eyepatch clad Christian Slater as Mason’s ex work collegue Sebastian and Mason’s wife Jenny played by Alice Eve, does the audience get inflicted instant pain in the form of unnecessary exposition dominated dialogue that leave no mark as unengaging. Though Marton Csokas can execute a stereotypical action-movie villain with ease, his portrayal of Colonel Koehorst is profoundly lacking on all fronts, even in how he menaces viewers.

Going back, Freelance fails in pacing the hardest. In pacing, the first act spends far too much time towards initial character setup, and the film tries to blend comedy with action, which brings everything to a halt. This faced-paced hovering can be experienced greatly during the shifts from banter to life-and-death, dragging the audience out of the emotional struggle.

Coming to the visuals, the bar is placed any lower, and Freelance might slip through. The action does stick to the jungle backdrop of Paldonia, but other than the action itself, the cinematography as well as the musical score stick to functional. It’ll work, but I doubt if you are going to remember it later. I felt the film deters from telltale badges of poor aggressive comedy struggle through the score, as it supports the further undeveloping action.

But there are some aspects that kept me going on the film though, like the delivery of the dictator as he rolled along with John Cena and the journalist. Aside the bodyguard's chemistry with the journalist which produced comedic moments, I think the dictator actually beat them both when it came to humour. I rate the movie 6/10.

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