Frequency is a 2000 American science fiction thriller film starring Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, Andre Braugher, Elizabeth Mitchell, Shawn Doyle, Melissa Errico, and Noah Emmerich.

[2][3] In 1969 New York, a gasoline tanker overturns on a highway ramp, spilling fuel into an electrical substation below ground and trapping two workers.

John's lifelong friend and neighbor, Gordo, stops by to borrow fishing equipment and finds a Heathkit single-sideband ham radio that once belonged to Frank, but fails to get it working.

At first, Frank is alarmed and refuses to believe, but the next day, while rescuing a runaway from a burning warehouse, he recalls John's warning, changes his course, and survives the fire.

In the original timeline, Shepard was a hospital patient under the care of Julia; when she left during her shift after learning of Frank's death, an inexperienced doctor accidentally administered a medication that caused a fatal allergic reaction.

At the station, Frank attempts to explain to a highly skeptical Satch that he got his information about the Nightingale from speaking to his grown-up son John over the radio.

He proves his innocence to Satch by accurately predicting the course of the 1969 World Series Game 5, including the highly unusual shoe polish play.

Shepard arrives and attacks Frank, who fends him off and, apparently, kills him after a foot chase and plunge into the river, thus ensuring Julia's survival.

The film concludes with a softball game including John and his own little son, his now-wife Samantha (expecting another baby), his healthy and happy gray-haired parents, Satch, and Gordo, who has now become wealthy thanks to a stock tip fed to him in the past by John -- posing as a magical "Santa Claus" -- advising six-year-old Gordo to remember the "magic word, Yahoo," which convinces him to invest in the internet company in his adulthood.

In a 2000 interview shortly after the American release of Frequency, he described the film as "high risk" since the project had already been passed among several directors, including one of note who had twice the budget Hoblit was given.

[14] David Armstrong, of the San Francisco Chronicle, praised the moments in the film when John and Frank Sullivan talked to each other over the ham radio but criticized the "unintentionally funny climax."

"[15] Todd McCarthy of Variety magazine said despite Dennis Quaid and James Caviezel's physical separation in the film, they formed a "palpable bond that [gave] the picture its tensile strength".

[16] McCarthy noted that screenwriter Toby Emmerich's "bold leap into reconfiguring the past" created "agreeable surprises" and an "infinite number of possibilities" to the plot's direction.

[16] James Berardinelli gave the film two stars out of four, criticizing the "coincidence-laden climax" but wrote that "poor writing [did] not demand subpar acting", praising Frequency's "few nice performances".

The Reno officers proceed to spoil the ending of the "novel" (based on them having seen the movie), causing the homeowner to suddenly become ambivalent about having his novel saved from the flames.