Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Freelancers Blu-ray Movie Review

You mean like Robert De Niro and Forest Whitaker?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 20, 2012

Even the greatest actors need to eat, pay the bills, and maybe stash a little moolah away for a rainy day, right? But in the case of Robert De Niro, some more cynical types might be wondering if he simply accepts whatever offers come along as long as the paycheck is significant enough. How else to explain the rather mind boggling array of less than stellar properties the actor has consigned himself to over the past several years? Now comes Freelancers, a film produced by and starring Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson that is a collection of largely nonsensical clichés in search of something—anything—memorable. The film was evidently released theatrically in a very limited run a couple of weeks ago before its almost immediate dump to the home video market. Now, truth be told it’s not the worst film ever made in the “hard bitten cops on the take” idiom, and De Niro is fine, if unremarkable, as the elder policeman riding herd over a coterie of younger thug-cops in training. But there’s nothing in Freelancers that most viewers won’t have seen in any number of other properties. We have the trio of street kid buddies who are rather mysteriously paroled from a crime spree and then without a word of explanation are pretty much immediately shown as rookie cops. We have a New York police force rife with corruption, with everything from drug deals (and rampant drug use), to racism and a kind of laissez faire attitude toward a number of criminals whose villainy plays into the cops’ own underhanded dealings. And we get a thumping rap score (provided by erstwhile jazz great Stanley Clarke), replete with a “50 Cent” theme song, along with a slew of gritty shots of the urban minefield that is Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs. Aside from the participation of 50 Cent and De Niro, the film rather improbably includes Forest Whitaker (as the cocaine addled cop training Jackson) and Dana Delany (as a never very well defined character whose late husband helped the three young street toughs matriculate to the police force).

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s early career was fostered by none other than Eminem, and Jackson seems to want to follow in the footsteps of several rap superstars by establishing his bona fides as a “serious actor”. In Freelancers, that includes some supposedly introspective hemming and hawing when, for example, he can’t quite make up his mind about really committing to his girlfriend or, later in the film, deciding between shooting her and his former best buddy when he’s given a no win option by a criminal mastermind he’s attempting to ingratiate himself with. For a film supposedly built up around its stars decent if modest acting charms, Freelancers doesn’t really provide 50 Cent with a whole lot to do, at least insofar as moments that will set him apart from any number of former street toughs who matriculated first to music and then to film.

Probably the most shocking thing about the film is its really smarmy portrayal of just about every element of New York City’s finest, where the so-called Thin Blue Line might in fact be slightly changed to a certain thin white line: namely rows of cocaine about to be snorted by any number of policemen. Whitaker’s depiction of a drug addled mentor to Jackson’s character is alarming and disturbing. He stumbles through the film with a sort of slack jawed alacrity, and there’s little if any attempt to paint any of these characters with saving graces. Another mentor cop is an out and out racist, a white man dropping the “n” word with abandon and repeatedly saying he wants to put the “monkeys” away where they belong. Only one older cop seems to be a decent sort, mentoring his rookie to help out with a PAL basketball team. Not so coincidentally, that selfsame rookie is the one who first attempts to break away from the drug dealing and otherwise criminal activity that the Jackson character gets so easily sucked into.

But instead of being a down and dirty exposé of epic criminal activity on the part of police, Freelancers descends into a pretty trite revenge drama. We’re privy to a series of flashbacks throughout the film, flashbacks that are ostensibly there to make us wonder but which are so obvious it’s completely clear that Malo, the Jackson character, watched as a child when his father, a crooked cop himself, was killed after trying to come clean. Of course it turns out that the De Niro character was no only Malo’s father’s partner in crime, but the man who put the hit out on Malo’s dead, turning the film into a sort of cat and mouse exercise as Malo first becomes an obedient lieutenant (figuratively) in the crime syndicate and then is out to both exact revenge as well as make a name for himself. One of the few interesting things about Freelancers is its ambivalent ending, which posits Malo as playing both sides of the street, as it were, perhaps snitching on the crime syndicate to the good guys while continuing his own career ascent as a Mob boss himself.

Freelancers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Freelancers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Ho hum, boys and their toys, which in this case means the typical DI tweaking contemporary directors and their cinematographers seemingly are incapable of not playing with. This is yet another film that skews color wildly at times as well as both pushes and diminishes contrast, seemingly on a whim. The good news is the image here is remarkably sharp a good deal of the time, and fine object detail is outstanding in many scenes, especially those containing close-ups. The bad news is there does seem to have been some over aggressive digital sharpening done to this release, leading to some persistent instability and aliasing in the many aerial flybys of the New York City skyline.

Freelancers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

If Freelancers had offered a (nonexistent) 3.1 mix, this score would have been through the roof. There's some actually nice activity in the front three channels as well as the subwoofer throughout this film, but the rear channels, while occasionally well utilized, tend to exist mostly for the thumping underscore as well as the occasional discrete foley effect. Fidelity is very good to excellent and while the sound mix here is awfully busy a lot of the time (intentionally so, one assumes), dialogue is mostly clear and cleanly presented. Dynamic range is quite wide and there is some really good LFE scattered throughout the film.

Freelancers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Jessy Terrero and Actor Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. This is a pretty sporadic and not especially informative commentary with long stretches of silence interrupted by such meaningful comments as 50 Cent informing us how "hot" his female co-stars are.


• Deleted Scenes (HD; 18:35) contains eleven scenes, including an alternate opening.


• Behind the Scenes with Interviews (HD; 14:30) is a standard EPK perfectly described by its title.


• Extended Interviews with Cast and Crew (HD; 33:20) includes segments with Jessy Terrero, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Forest Whitaker, Malcolm Goodwin, Ryan O'Nan, Beau Garrett, Anabelle Acosta, writer L. Philippe Casseus, and Producer Randall Emmett. Notice a conspicuous absence in these names?


• Freelancers Trailer (HD; 2:32)

Freelancers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Freelancers isn't downright horrible, but that's about the best thing you can say about it. The film is just ludicrous a lot of the time, bouncing between characters (some of whom just up and disappear for long stretches of the movie) and various plot points. Even supposedly dramatic moments like Malo's choice between shooting his girlfriend or his buddy are then just moved past with literally nary a comment, as if to say, "Oh, well, fiddle-de-dee, someone had to die." This may have been a vanity project for Jackson (it certainly smacks of it), but that then begs the question as to why actors of the caliber of De Niro or Whitaker (or, to a lesser extent, Delany) would want to get involved in something like this. Which brings us back to the question that started this review: even the greatest actors need to eat, pay the bills, and maybe stash a little moolah away for a rainy day, right?