Freejack is a
1992The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films :source: - Awards :Academy Awards:*Article 99B...
science fiction filmScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that aren't necessarily accepted by mainstream science. such as extra-terrestrial life forms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic...
directed by
Geoff MurphyGeoff Murphy is a successful New Zealand filmmaker best-known for his work during the renaissance of New Zealand cinema that began in the last half of the 1970s....
. It stars
Emilio EstevezEmilio Estevez is an American actor, film director, poet, and writer. He started his career as an actor and is famous for being a member of the acting Brat Pack of the 1980s, appearing in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire...
,
Mick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is a Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, occasional film producer and actor, best known for his work as lead vocalist and frontman of The Rolling Stones.The Rolling Stones started in the early 1960s as a...
,
Rene RussoRene Marie Russo is an American film actress.-Early life:Russo, an Italian American, was born in Burbank, California, the daughter of Sicilian parents, Shirley , a factory worker and barmaid, and Nino Russo, a sculptor and car mechanic who left the family when Rene was two. Russo grew up with her...
,
Jonathan BanksJonathan Banks is an American character actor in film and television. He tends to play villains.Probably his most well-known movie roles are in two films starring Eddie Murphy: 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop. In 48 Hrs. he plays a character who is a friend of the lead and is killed by the villain,...
, and
Anthony HopkinsSir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE is a Welsh film, stage and television actor. Considered to be one of film's greatest living actors, he is known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, its sequel, Hannibal, and its prequel, Red Dragon...
. Upon its release in the United States, the film received harsh reviews. The story was adapted from a 1959 novel titled
Immortality, Inc.Immortality, Inc. is a 1958 science fiction novella by Robert Sheckley, about a fictional process whereby a human's consciousness may be transferred into a brain-dead body. The serialised form was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.The novel's basic premise was adapted for the film...
by
Robert SheckleyRobert Sheckley was a Hugo and Nebula nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical.Sheckley was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science...
. Aside from the most basic elements, however — the journey of a modern man into a future where everything is for sale, and the presence of a "spiritual switchboard" in which souls are suspended — the
cyberpunkCyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk", published in 1983...
plot bears little resemblance either in tone or content to Sheckley's story, which depicts a world of
zombieA zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer...
s.
In the year 2009, the super-wealthy achieve immortality by hiring "bonejackers,"
mercenariesA mercenary is a professional soldier hired by a foreign army, as opposed to a soldier enlisted in the armed forces of a sovereign state. He or she takes part in armed conflict on many different scales, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain...
equipped with
time travelTime travel is the concept of moving between different moments in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space, either sending objects backwards in time to a moment before the present, or sending objects forward from the present to the future without the need to...
devices, to snatch people from the past, just prior to the moment of their deaths, for use as substitute bodies.
Freejack is a
1992The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films :source: - Awards :Academy Awards:*Article 99B...
science fiction filmScience fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that aren't necessarily accepted by mainstream science. such as extra-terrestrial life forms, alien worlds, and time travel, often along with technological elements such as futuristic...
directed by
Geoff MurphyGeoff Murphy is a successful New Zealand filmmaker best-known for his work during the renaissance of New Zealand cinema that began in the last half of the 1970s....
. It stars
Emilio EstevezEmilio Estevez is an American actor, film director, poet, and writer. He started his career as an actor and is famous for being a member of the acting Brat Pack of the 1980s, appearing in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire...
,
Mick JaggerSir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is a Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, occasional film producer and actor, best known for his work as lead vocalist and frontman of The Rolling Stones.The Rolling Stones started in the early 1960s as a...
,
Rene RussoRene Marie Russo is an American film actress.-Early life:Russo, an Italian American, was born in Burbank, California, the daughter of Sicilian parents, Shirley , a factory worker and barmaid, and Nino Russo, a sculptor and car mechanic who left the family when Rene was two. Russo grew up with her...
,
Jonathan BanksJonathan Banks is an American character actor in film and television. He tends to play villains.Probably his most well-known movie roles are in two films starring Eddie Murphy: 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop. In 48 Hrs. he plays a character who is a friend of the lead and is killed by the villain,...
, and
Anthony HopkinsSir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE is a Welsh film, stage and television actor. Considered to be one of film's greatest living actors, he is known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, its sequel, Hannibal, and its prequel, Red Dragon...
. Upon its release in the United States, the film received harsh reviews. The story was adapted from a 1959 novel titled
Immortality, Inc.Immortality, Inc. is a 1958 science fiction novella by Robert Sheckley, about a fictional process whereby a human's consciousness may be transferred into a brain-dead body. The serialised form was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.The novel's basic premise was adapted for the film...
by
Robert SheckleyRobert Sheckley was a Hugo and Nebula nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist and broadly comical.Sheckley was given the Author Emeritus honor by the Science...
. Aside from the most basic elements, however — the journey of a modern man into a future where everything is for sale, and the presence of a "spiritual switchboard" in which souls are suspended — the
cyberpunkCyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk", published in 1983...
plot bears little resemblance either in tone or content to Sheckley's story, which depicts a world of
zombieA zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer...
s.
Plot
In the year 2009, the super-wealthy achieve immortality by hiring "bonejackers,"
mercenariesA mercenary is a professional soldier hired by a foreign army, as opposed to a soldier enlisted in the armed forces of a sovereign state. He or she takes part in armed conflict on many different scales, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain...
equipped with
time travelTime travel is the concept of moving between different moments in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space, either sending objects backwards in time to a moment before the present, or sending objects forward from the present to the future without the need to...
devices, to snatch people from the past, just prior to the moment of their deaths, for use as substitute bodies. Those who flee, rather than allowing their minds to be replaced with those of the rich, are known as "freejacks," and considered less than human under the law.
Alex Furlong (Estevez) is a
Formula OneFormula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1, and currently officially referred to as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" in the name refers to a set of rules to which all participants...
car racer who is just about to die in a spectacular 1991 crash when a time machine snatches him from the cockpit and into the 21st century Bronx, a wasteland populated by scavengers and killers. When Furlong's captors are ambushed by a hit squad, the time traveler is able to escape from Victor Vacendak (Jagger), a hardened mercenary who has snatched him on behalf of the all-powerful McCandless Corporation. As it turns out, Alex's former fiancée Julie Redlund (Russo) is now an executive at McCandless, handling high-stakes mineral negotiations with a rival Japanese firm.
Alex spends much of the film escaping the clutches of Victor, a ruthless pursuer who nevertheless lives by a code of honor, and rekindling his relationship with Julie. Ian McCandless, Julie's boss (Hopkins), is revealed to be the dying man trying to steal Furlong's body, as he himself died on a business trip out of town.
However, not only do Alex and Julie have to evade Vacendak's army of security guards and the McCandless Corporation Police forces, they also have to deal with running from the private guards of McCandless' corporate X.O., Mark Michellete (
Jonathan BanksJonathan Banks is an American character actor in film and television. He tends to play villains.Probably his most well-known movie roles are in two films starring Eddie Murphy: 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop. In 48 Hrs. he plays a character who is a friend of the lead and is killed by the villain,...
), who is gunning for McCandless' job as boss of the McCandless Corporation. Alex can't even trust his old friends from 1991, who are now happy to sell him out.
Tired of running, Furlong, pretending to take Julie hostage, negotiates with Michellete to arrange a meeting with the powerful McCandless executive, counting on his not knowing about the past relationship between the two. But as it turns out, Michellete has seen the footage of Julie's desperate grief after Alex's 1991 accident. After she slaps him in return for his mockery, the couple has to go on the run again. Their plans to flee into the lobby, however, are thwarted when they encounter a gunfight between two factions, now in opposition: McCandless's security guards and Vacendak's mercenaries.
Despite Julie's plan to leave the building through an "escape module" on the hundredth floor, the elevator takes them automatically to the complex at the very top of the building where McCandless' mind is in storage. In a
virtual realityVirtual reality is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world...
encounter with McCandless's essence, he explains his goal: to use Alex's body to satiate his love for Julie. Apologizing, he offers to die and let Alex run the company under the guise of being McCandless.
Julie says it could be pulled off as Vacendak arrives. McCandless was merely stalling for time as Alex was forced into the apparatus: Alex protests, "You don't need a new body, you need a new soul, and there isn't a machine to give you one!" Alex fights the process just as Michellette stumbles in, wounded from fighting Vacendak's soldiers. In the confusion, Julie grabs the gun of the soldier holding her and fires off a shot that destroys the processing crystal which conducts the transfer process. The results are inconclusive as to whether or not it is McCandless or Furlong in Alex's body now. The scientists cannot determine the answer, but Vacendak can, as only Vacendak knows a secret code McCandless gave him.
Alex reads the code, slowly, and Vacendak asks him to continue. Alex finishes the code quickly. Mr. Michellete tries to kill Alex but is gunned down by Vacendak's men. Alex remarks about how he feels in his 'new' body, before telling Julie that she will be dressed more appropriately so that the two of them can take a drive.
Hours later, after the coup is over, Julie and Alex get into one of McCandless' favorite vehicles; Alex tells the driver that he will do the driving today. As he wheels the vehicle out of the estate gates, a line of Vacendak's security personnel stand before them with their firearms ready. Alex never knew, that McCandless never drives himself. Vacendak then reveals, that Alex 'wasn't even close' to the secret number he recited to affirm his identity. He waves off the guards and Alex and Julie speed off into the distance.
Cast
| Actor |
Character |
| Emilio Estevez Emilio Estevez is an American actor, film director, poet, and writer. He started his career as an actor and is famous for being a member of the acting Brat Pack of the 1980s, appearing in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire...
|
Alex Furlong |
| Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is a Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, occasional film producer and actor, best known for his work as lead vocalist and frontman of The Rolling Stones.The Rolling Stones started in the early 1960s as a...
|
Victor Vacendak |
| Rene Russo Rene Marie Russo is an American film actress.-Early life:Russo, an Italian American, was born in Burbank, California, the daughter of Sicilian parents, Shirley , a factory worker and barmaid, and Nino Russo, a sculptor and car mechanic who left the family when Rene was two. Russo grew up with her...
|
Julie Redlund |
Anthony HopkinsSir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE is a Welsh film, stage and television actor. Considered to be one of film's greatest living actors, he is known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, its sequel, Hannibal, and its prequel, Red Dragon...
|
Ian McCandless |
| Jonathan Banks Jonathan Banks is an American character actor in film and television. He tends to play villains.Probably his most well-known movie roles are in two films starring Eddie Murphy: 48 Hrs. and Beverly Hills Cop. In 48 Hrs. he plays a character who is a friend of the lead and is killed by the villain,...
|
Mark Michlette |
| David Johansen David Roger Johansen is an American rock, protopunk, blues and pop singer, as well as a songwriter and actor. He was a member of the seminal protopunk band The New York Dolls and also achieved commercial success under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter.-Early life:Johansen was born in the New York...
|
Brad |
| Grand L. Bush Grand Lee Bush is an American actor of stage, television and major motion pictures.-Personal life:Bush was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Essie and Robert Bush, who was an actor. Shakespearean-trained, Bush studied film and theatre at the Los Angeles Theatre Academy, University of...
|
Boone |
John SheaJohn Victor Shea III is an American Emmy award-winning actor and director who has starred on stage, television and in film. He is best known for his role as Lex Luthor in the 1990s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and also starred in the short lived 1990s TV series WIOU as...
|
Morgan |
Frankie FaisonFrankie Russel Faison , often credited as Frankie R. Faison, is an African-American actor.-Personal life:Faison was born in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Carmena and Edgar Faison. He studied drama at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois...
|
Homeless man |
Ratings
In the US,
Freejack is rated R for violence and adult language. In the UK it is rated 15, while in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
its rating is M15+.