Review: ‘Freelance’ (2023), starring John Cena, Alison Brie, Juan Pablo Raba and Christian Slater

October 26, 2023

by Carla Hay

John Cena, Juan Pablo Raba and Alison Brie in “Freelance” (Photo courtesy of Relativity Media)

“Freelance” (2023)

Directed by Pierre Morel

Culture Representation: Taking place in the U.S. and in the fictional South American country of Paldonia, the action comedy film “Freelance” features cast of white, Latin and indigenous characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A former U.S. Army special forces operative, who hates his current job as small-time attorney, is convinced to take a freelance job as a security guard for a journalist interviewing a South American dictator, who is the target of an assassination plot, putting all three of them in danger. 

Culture Audience: “Freelance” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of John Cena, Alison Brie and any mindless action flick with a lazy and predictable plot.

John Cena and Christian Slater in “Freelance” (Photo courtesy of Relativity Media)

Watching the horrible action comedy flick “Freelance” is like being stuck in a putrid cesspool of idiocy, much like the film’s main characters are stuck in a swampy jungle. The cast members have no chemistry with each other. The plot is formulaic junk. The dialogue and scenarios strain to be funny but just fall with a lumbering and clumsy thud.

Directed by Pierre Morel and written by Jacob Lentz, “Freelance” is a failure on every level except for the movie’s shoot-out scenes, which succeed at being obnoxious and are really just distractions for a flimsy story. All of the stars of “Freelance” look like they really don’t want to be there but couldn’t resist whatever they were paid for this embarrassing train wreck. It’s the worst type of comedy film: one that has no self-awareness of how atrocious the jokes are.

Morel’s main claim to fame is directing the first “Taken” movie, which was released in 2008. “Freelance” is Lentz’s debut as a feature film screenwriter, after being a TV writer who’s worked a lot with Jimmy Kimmel. It would explain why there’s a weak sitcom/sketch comedy tone to “Freelance” that does not work well in this feature film.

“Freelance” is just a mishmish of clichés and ripoffs from much better action flicks where a good-looking and macho “protector” is matched with an uptight and sarcastic woman who likes to think of herself as very independent. She doesn’t want him to be there, as they navigate their way through dangerous terrain. Throw in lazy and awful stereotypes of people from South American countries, and you have the sheer stupidity of “Freelance.”

The movie’s very thin concept is bloated by repetitive scenes of shootouts and other violence, in addition to an unrelenting stream of witless dialogue and acting that range from looking bored to being absolutely cringeworthy. In the beginning of the movie, viewers see the main protagonist is Mason Pettits (played by John Cena), who gives occasional self-pitying voiceover narration. As Mason tells it, he was in law school and on a fast track to a conventional and tedious life, when he dropped out of law school to join the U.S. Army.

While in the Army, he joined a special forces unit, which Mason says became his “true purpose” in life. “For the first time in my life, I was happy,” Mason remembers. One day, Mason and his team members were on a secret mission to assassinate a South American dictator named Juan Venegas (played by Juan Pablo Raba), the ruthless president of a fictional country called Paldonia. Mason and others were in a helicopter that was attacked by gunfire. The helicopter crashed, leaving Mason with injuries that forced him to honorably discharge from the Army.

After leaving his Army life behind, Mason graduated from law school and became an attorney. He got married to a woman named Jenny (played by Alice Eve), and they have a daughter named Casey. The movie does a quick montage to show these life milestones for Mason, until it fast-forwards to Casey (played by Molly McCann) being 8 years old. Mason now has his own law practice, where he is the only attorney. He makes a comfortable income where he can support his family and live a middle-class life.

The problem is that Mason hates his job and despises having a routine life. “I went back to the normal life I tried to avoid,” Mason says in a voiceover. “I couldn’t feel more like a failure.” Never mind that he doesn’t appreciate having good health and a loving family, because Mason’s narcissism knows no bounds. As an example of what type of work he’s doing as a lawyer, an early scene in the movie shows Mason being hired by a weirdo named Scott (played by Felipe Andrés Echavarría), who wants Mason to represent him in a billing dispute that Scott has with a phone company. Scott pays a retainer fee that’s a measly $500.

It’s around the same time that Mason is contacted by a former U.S. military colleague named Sebastian Earle (played by Christian Slater), whom Mason hasn’t seen in years. Sebastian used to work with Mason when they were in the U.S. Army’s special ops together. For the past seven years, Sebastian has owned and operated Contracted Defense Initiatives, a company that mostly does secretive security jobs that are related to politics or government.

Sebastian, who is a slick salesman type, tells Mason that he wants to hire Mason for a “one-off” security gig, where Mason would have to be the bodyguard for a TV journalist who’s doing an exclusive interview with Juan Venegas. Mason blames Juan for the botched mission that caused Mason’s injuries that ended Mason’s military career. Mason immediately says no for that reason and because Mason thinks he’s too old for that type of security job.

However, Mason can’t seem to leave his combat mentality behind. When Casey tells him that a boy has been bullying her at school, Mason advises Casey to punch the boy in the face and in the penis. But when Casey takes his advice, she gets into trouble at the school. The boy’s father is also a lawyer, according to Jenny, who has to deal with this mess.

It’s the last straw for Jenny, who feels that Mason has become bored with their marriage. Jenny also thinks that Mason is disrespectful of her wish to teach Casey how to deal with problems in a non-violent way. Jenny tells Mason that she wants a separation and will be moving in with her mother and taking Casey.

This marital separation prompts Mason to change his mind about Sebastian’s job offer, since Mason wants to spend some time away from home to get away from his personal problems. When Mason arrives in Paldonia, he describes the nation this way: “It’s like a Tim Burton movie: colorful but creepy as fuck.” (“Freelance” was actually filmed in Colombia.) Mason’s unease with Paldonia is because the country is in political turmoil over Juan’s leadership. All signs indicate that Juan might be assassinated in a coup.

The TV journalist who is supposed to be protected by Mason is Claire Wellington (played by Alison Brie), who has recently been disgraced and forced to resign from her job because she used untruthful sources she didn’t verify. Lately, Claire has been doing superficial entertainment reporting, which Claire thinks is beneath her skills, because she would rather be covering hard news. The movie never really explains how Claire landed an exclusive interview wth Juan (who is described as someone who almost never does interviews), but she needs a bodyguard because being around Juan can be very dangerous.

Predictably, when Claire and Mason first meet each other, they have a clash of personalities. Vain and snooty Claire thinks that Mason is just an air-headed lug. She’s shocked to find out that Mason is an attorney, but she still treats him like a servant.

Meanwhile, Mason dislikes Claire’s condescending attitude and thinks she’s underestimating the danger they could be in for this interview. Thankfully, “Freelance” doesn’t do the stereotypical subplot of having sexual tension between Mason and Claire. There is no sexual tension, because these two characters (and the cast members portraying them) have no chemistry together.

Juan, who is a bachelor, is the type of dictator who dresses in designer suits and thinks he can charm anyone, especially women. Not surprisingly, he makes inappropriate comments to Claire in a pathetic attempt to seduce her. Juan is disliked by the “common folks” in his country, as evidenced by a schoolgirl of about 8 years old, who shows Juan her middle finger when his car is driving through a working-class area. “Freelance” is so poorly written and sloppily edited, it jumps from one scene to the next, with very little cohesion.

In a small caravan of SUVs driving through a jungle, one of the SUVs has Juan, Claire and Mason in it, when the caravan is attacked by gunshots. It’s an assassination attempt on Juan, but the would-be assassins are so moronic, they shoot at the wrong SUV. Juan, Claire and Mason then escape into the jungle. The rest of “Freelance” is a jumbled mess of shootouts and chase scenes, as Juan, Claire and Mason spend time together and apart, trying not to get killed by Juan’s enemies.

Other characters in this shoddy story are one-dimensional and vapid. Jorge Vásquez (played by Sebastián Eslava) is Juan’s buffoonish nephew, who wants to take control of Paldonia. Colonel Jan Koehorst (played by Marton Csokas) is a trusted military ally of Juan’s. There’s also a subplot involving an indigenous tribe, whose chief (played by Diego Vásquez) and other tribe members are such hollow characters, they aren’t even given names in the movie.

Cena is doing another version of the characters he tends to play: hulking brutes who need redemption. Brie seems to have put some effort to her performance, but her talent always looks out of place in this low-quality flick. Raba hams it up a little too much and plays Juan as a smarmy salesman instead of as a menacing dictator. And even though Slater shares top billing in “Freelance,” his Sebastian character is in the movie for less than 15 minutes.

“Freelance” alternates between being painful to watch and being downright dull. It’s like watching a stand-up comedian do jokes that bomb, one right after the other. But in this movie’s case, there really are explosive bombs and gunfire going off amid all the bad comedy. The action scenes, which could have been the saving grace of this dumpster film, are irritating to watch and have no credibility or suspense.

All the loud violence in the movie won’t be enough to erase the groans of disgust that some viewers might have when seeing how much “Freelance” insults viewers’ intelligence. Other viewers might be shocked into silence at how terrible “Freelance” is and might wonder if this lousy flop will get any worse. It does. The ending is trash and makes no sense—just like it makes no sense for anyone to watch “Freelance” after being warned about how worthless and annoying it is.

Relativity Media will release “Freelance” in U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2023.

Review: ‘The Marksman’ (2021), starring Liam Neeson

January 15, 2021

by Carla Hay

Liam Neeson and Jacob Perez in director “The Marksman” (Photo by Ryan Sweeney/Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

“The Marksman” (2021)

Directed by Robert Lorenz

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States (especially the Southwest) and briefly in Mexico, the action flick “The Marksman” features a racially diverse cast of white people and Latinos, with a few African Americans and Asians.

Culture Clash: A former Marine-turned-rancher, who lives in Arizona, helps an orphaned boy, who’s an undocumented Mexican immigrant, as they try to hide from drug cartel gangsters who want to kill the boy.

Culture Audience: “The Marksman” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Liam Neeson and to viewers who like violent and cliché chase movies.

Liam Neeson in “The Marksman” (Photo by Ryan Sweeney/Open Road Films/Briarcliff Entertainment)

By now, Liam Neeson has made so many mediocre-to-bad action schlockfests that he could do them in his sleep. Audiences can also predict in their sleep what’s going to happen in these movies. Does Neeson play a loner who’s got something to prove? Is he an anti-hero who breaks the law as a means to an end? Is there a formulaic and sometimes nonsensical plot amid all the chase scenes, fist fights and gun shootouts? The answer is “yes” to all of these questions. “The Marksman” falls right in line in Neeson’s long list of these types of forgettable flicks.

Directed with little imagination by Robert Lorenz (who co-wrote the derivative screenplay with Chris Charles and Danny Kravitz), “The Marksman” tries and fails to be more socially relevant than the average action movie. “The Marksman” throws in the hot-button issues of undocumented Mexican immigrants and Mexican drug cartels, who have been used in divisive political debates on how the United States should or should not change immigration laws. The movie panders to the worst negative stereotypes of Mexicans who cross over into the U.S. border. And the film pushes another “white savior” narrative that makes a crusading white person as the only person in the story who has the conscience and the courage to do the “rescuing” of someone who isn’t white.

In “The Marksman,” Neeson portrays Jim Hanson, a former Marine who is now a rancher in Naco, Arizona. Neeson keeps his native Irish accent in the movie, so it’s clear to viewers that Jim is an Irish immigrant. Jim sometimes tries to talk like an American cowboy, but it doesn’t sound believable, partly because much of this movie’s screenplay has badly written dialogue.

Jim is a grouchy and sad widower who lives alone, and his life isn’t going so well. In addition to grieving over his wife (who died of cancer), he’s also having major financial problems because his ranch is on the brink of going into foreclosure. Jim gets a visit from a bank official (played by Alex Knight), who tells Jim that he has 90 days to come up with the back payments, or else the bank will take ownership of the property. And it looks like Jim could very well lose his ranch, because when he tries to come up with ways to earn more money, all of his attempts fail.

Jim’s only real companion is his Border Collie mix dog named Jackson. Jim also has an adult stepdaughter named Sarah (played by Katheryn Winnick), who works as a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Jim has been hiding his financial problems from Sarah. But after the visit from the bank official, Jim meets up with Sarah at a bar, where he tries to drown his sorrows in drinking alcohol, and he confesses to her about being close to losing the ranch and feeling very scared about his uncertain future. Sarah is sympathetic and comforting. She drives Jim home because he’s too drunk to drive.

Meanwhile, the beginning of the movie shows the Mexican boy who will unexpectedly come into Jim’s life. His name is Miguel (played by Jacob Perez), who’s about 12 or 13 years old. Miguel lives in Mexico with his widowed mother Rosa (played by Teresa Ruiz) in a modest house. Miguel is shown going to another house to look for an older girl named Lola, whom he has a crush on, but Lola’s brother (played by Harry Maldonado) tells Miguel to leave immediately because Lola is too old for him.

Rosa and Miguel don’t have an entirely squeaky-clean life. Miguel’s uncle Carlos (played by Alfredo Quiroz) helps look after him, but Carlos is a member of a drug cartel. Carlos has stolen a lot of cash from the cartel, so he’s captured and tortured by some of the gang members. The cartel’s boss is named Angel (who’s never seen or heard in this movie), but he has a goon named Mauricio Carrero (played by Juan Pablo Raba) as one of the chief henchman tasked with “making an example” out of Carlos.

Before Carlos is caught by the other cartel thugs, he makes a frantic phone call to Rosa and tells her that she and Miguel must leave the house immediately because people will be looking for them and will want to kill them. Rosa takes a travel bag full of cash (which is presumably the stolen cash) and follows Carlos’ orders. She and Miguel barely manage to escape from the house before Mauricio and his cronies show up. The gangsters have tracked Rosa down because they took Carlos’ phone and saw her number in the phone.

Rosa has enlisted the help of a guide to take her and Miguel to the U.S. border. But shortly before they get to the border, the guide changes his mind when he sees that they’re being followed in a Chevrolet Suburban SUV, and he figures out that Rosa is running away from gang members. He tells Rosa and Miguel that they’re now on their own. He advises them to find the part of the border’s wire fence that can be loosened so that they can cross over.

With Mauricio and his thugs (he has two with him, including his brother) quickly catching up, Rosa and Miguel frantically race to the fence and find the part of the fence that they can go through to get to the U.S. border. However, one of Rosa’s legs accidentally gets cut on the fence wire. Miguel is running ahead of her into the middle of a road, where he almost gets hit by a beat-up Chevy truck. Who’s driving the truck? Jim, of course.

Jim knows immediately that the woman and boy he’s encountered have entered the U.S. border illegally, so he calls the U.S. Border Patrol to report them. His plan is to hold them until the Border Patrol agents can arrive and take over. But then, Mauricio and his thugs show up and demand that Jim (who has a gun) hand over Rosa and Mauricio. Jim refuses by saying, “Sorry, Pancho, these illegals are mine. I suggest you just turn around and say ‘adios’.”

This leads to a shootout and chase scene that includes Mauricio hopping on the truck and trying to get Jim to run off the road. However, Mauricio is thrown off of the truck. And in the end, Mauricio’s brother and Rosa end up dying from gunshot wounds. Mauricio leaves in defeat with his remaining cohort. But, of course, Mauricio will be back for revenge.

The Border Patrol agents take Miguel to the nearest detention center, and they plan to deport him back to Mexico, since they were able to track down some relatives who are willing to take custody of Miguel. As Jim is driving away, he notices that Rosa left behind a bag full of cash in his truck, along with a slip of paper that has a street address in Chicago. There’s no name with this address, but Jim immediately figures out that Rosa intended to flee with Miguel to this address.

Jim suddenly has a change of heart and decides that he’s going to take Miguel to this address. He calls his stepdaughter Sarah, finds out that Miguel is going to be deported, and Jim asks her if there’s anything she can do to stop it. She firmly says no and tells him it would be against the law for anyone to stop the deportation.

But that doesn’t prevent Jim from showing up at the Border Patrol detention center, pretending that Sarah gave her permission for Jim to visit Miguel, and talking his way into the room where Miguel is being held. Jim has been told that Miguel blames Jim for his mother’s death, but somehow Miguel doesn’t show much hesitation in trusting Jim when Jim tells Miguel to leave with him.

Jim and Miguel sneak out of the detention center. Is it kidnapping or is it doing the right thing? Jim thinks it’s the latter. And that’s when they go on the road trip that takes up the rest of the movie.

At first, Jim thinks Miguel doesn’t speak English, so there are some tense moments where he tries to communicate with a sullen Miguel. But then, lo and behold, Miguel reveals that he can speak and understand English perfectly. A very ignorant Jim is surprised to find out that Miguel learned English in school. It’s as if Jim thinks Mexico is a backwards country where the only language that’s taught in school is Spanish.

“The Marksman” has some very ludicrous plot holes to explain what happens next in the story. Mauricio and three of his thugs have crossed the U.S. border (by bribing a border patrol agent) and have been staking out the Border Patrol detention center to find out what happens to Miguel. It’s actually pretty dumb that they’re sitting in their car and hanging out conspicuously in a parking lot where they could be easily caught by Border Patrol agents.

Because of this stakeout, Mauricio and his thugs happen to see the exact moment when Jim and Miguel drive away in Jim’s truck. They follow Jim to his remote ranch. (Jim doesn’t notice that he’s being followed, even though he should be paranoid about being caught for kidnapping.) Jim and Miguel have left the ranch and have started their road trip by the time the thugs show up at the ranch. Mauricio and his cronies snoop around the house, and that’s how the gangsters find out personal information about Jim.

Mauricio uses his connections with computer hackers to track Jim’s movements, based on Jim’s credit card activity. Later in the story, Mauricio enlists the help of some other criminals during this cat-and-mouse game that takes place in various U.S. states, including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Arkansas. (The movie was actually filmed in Ohio and New Mexico.) These other criminals are just bit players, because for the most part, the gang doing the actual chasing consists of just four thugs (Mauricio and his cronies) who are in a SUV to track down Jim and Miguel.

“The Marksman” is one of those dumb action flicks where during a big showdown with guns or other weapons, people stand around talking to their targets, instead of using the weapons immediately on their targets. There are some “close calls” where Jim and Mauricio could have been easily killed immediately in real life. But since this is a fictional movie, that type of realism would cut the story too short, so the plot is dragged out in very unimaginative ways.

There’s almost no suspense in “The Marksman” because it plays out exactly how most people expect it to play out. The violence is utterly predictable. Perez’s portrayal of Miguel is adequate (the character doesn’t do much talking), while Neeson is clearly just going through the motions and brings nothing unique or charming to this role. Raba’s Mauricio character is very generic, while the other criminals in the movie have no discernable personalities.

There are moments when Jim starts to doubt his decision to “rescue” Miguel. And there’s a brief interlude where Jim and Miguel express very different views on religion: Miguel is religious and believes in heaven, while Jim is a staunch atheist. This difference in opinion leads to a scene where Jim shows he does have a heart underneath his gruff exterior. But that’s the closest thing to “emotional depth” that this banal movie has.

“The Marksman” isn’t a relentlessly horrible film. It’s just a very lazy film because it does nothing for the genre of action-oriented Westerns. Some viewers might be offended by how the movie depicts Mexican men. The only people who might like this movie are those who can’t get enough of Neeson recycling his same “defiant loner” persona in yet another stale action flick.

Open Road Films and Briarcliff Entertainment released “The Marksman” in U.S. cinemas on January 15, 2021.

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