Even the best creators sometimes struggle against the expectations they've set for their own audiences and may still put out subpar work from time to time. With Freelance, director Pierre Morel (Taken) demonstrates that his usual gift for insane action and ironic hilarity may not be as consistent as audiences have come to expect.
The film centers on Mason Pettits (John Cena), a retired operative now hired as personal bodyguard for disgraced journalist Claire Wellington (Alison Brie). Initially, his employment is a precaution due to her high-profile interviewee, dictator Juan Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba) of the fictional nation Paldonia.
There's already a bit going on here that initially feels as if it's setting up quite a large storyline. Between Claire's desperation to earn respect as a journalist and Mason's dissatisfaction with his post-Army life, the two lead characters being put within the same room wields potential to lead to some rather strong themes about the morals they are or aren't willing to cross in order to regain the lives they've lost. When a coup breaks out in the middle of their visit, this sets the stage to explore those themes.
Morel, however, seems to have largely forgotten his own premise less than halfway through filming. Although the film contains a few political discussions, they never quite land with as much gravity as the film's core premise could have delivered. It would be easy to defend this on a genre basis, as Freelance mostly leans toward comedy. However, unlike some other movies about chiseled hunks protecting brunette damsels (such as Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock in The Lost City), this one never completely embraces the absurdist comedy for which its plot line allows.
Although previous films such as District 13 delivered somewhat in the arenas of comedy and political discourse, his primary achievement as a director is his incredible grasp of what makes for a fun action piece. That's what makes it particularly disappointing that Freelance doesn't deliver anything unique in that regard, either.
None of this is to say that the movie is bad. The politics are mildly thought-provoking, the jokes are mildly chuckle-inducing, and the action is good enough to hold attention for a few seconds in between handfuls of popcorn. To be certain, Morel hardly deserves to be raked over the coals for delivering a typical popcorn flick. He even makes a few interesting directorial choices, such as some rather skilled use of POV shots. Unfortunately, these moments of flair are few and far between, serving only to underscore the mediocrity of everything that happens before and after.
Even worse, he's not the only one who phoned this one in. John Cena more or less copy-pastes the same performance into every comedy movie in which he appears, and Freelance is no exception. Alison Brie, who's previously shown incredible range in her starring role on the Netflix series GLOW, does nothing exceptional here. Only Venegas really stands out for the quality of his performance, and it's not necessarily a great sign when the dictator is the most enjoyable character in a movie.
The worst part of this all is that every other member of the crew seems to have given it their all. From the location scouts to the effects team, everyone involved in this film seems to have treated their role as if they expected to create a far better movie than their cast and director were interested in creating. Finding high-quality locations in the depths of a Colombian jungle can't be easy, yet even those unfamiliar with the filming process will be able to tell at a glance that this film was largely shot on location. It's a shame this hard work will go largely unsung by those who forget about the movie within a week of seeing it. The film is undoubtedly worth seeing for those seeking a treat for the eyes. Its merits just might not extend too far beyond that.