FREELANCE

FREELANCE is an action comedy about a former Special Forces soldier turned lawyer and family man who hates his job and struggles to find purpose and meaning, and finds more than he bargained when an old friend hires him to protect a disgraced female journalist going to interview a notorious Latin American dictator. FREELANCE offers viewers lots of excitement, laughs and surprising twists, including some positive Christian references, but its pro-family, anti-totalitarian sentiments are marred by nearly 40 obscenities and profanities, some lewd comedy and an ending with mixed political values.

John Cena stars in the movie as Mason Pettits. Mason tried to find purpose by becoming a lawyer then enlisting in the military. However, he’s the only survivor when his helicopter is shot down on a mission to assassinate a Latin American dictator named Juan Venegas of Paldoña. A leg wound forces Mason to leave the military and re-join civilian life as a lawyer once again. However, even though he’s married with a precious young daughter, he feels like a failure and loathes his job.

Then his old friend, Sebastian, introduces him to Contracted Defense Initiatives, a security business that hires people for protection detail. Sebastian wants to hire Mason for a personal protection detail for a disgraced female journalist named Claire Wellington. Mason is reluctant to take the job, because Claire is going to Paldoña to interview Vanegas, the dictator who killed his Army buddies. However, Mason can’t turn down the $20,000 Sebastien offers him. Meanwhile, Claire hopes the interview will restore her career.

In Paldoña, Mason can’t hide his disgust for Vanegas when the dictator and his vehicle convoy picks them up from the airport to take them to his country estate. However, during the ride, the convoy is attacked in a coup engineered by the dictator’s nephew, Jorge, who’s in cahoots with international energy corporations that have hired some South African mercenaries. Mason is a little bit out of practice, but he manages to stave off the attack with his weapons expertise and courage.

After the attack, Mason decides to part ways with Venegas and take Claire out of the country. However, the men in the helicopter that Sebastian sends to fly them out betray them. Mason fights them off, but Venegas ends up saving his life at one point. Suddenly, Mason’s assumptions about the dictator are put into question.

More plot twists ensue, which keeps viewers guessing as to who is the villain.

FREELANCE offers viewers lots of excitement, laughs and surprising twists The cinematography is fantastic with many scenes with characters navigating the beauty of the jungle. Costumes and dialogue add to the movie’s authenticity. Alison Brie and John Cena deliver great comedic performances as Claire and Mason, and Juan Pablo Raba is charming and funny as the apparent dictator.

FREELANCE has a strong moral, pro-family worldview. It also has some unexpected positive Christian references. For example, President Venegas is shown praying in a church in one scene after the movie reveals that he’s trying to wrest control of his country from evil corporate interests. FREELANCE also has an anti-totalitarian view that promotes positive Western, conservative values of liberty and free elections.

However, the movie’s pro-family, anti-totalitarian sentiments are marred by nearly 40 obscenities and profanities, intense action violence, some lewd comedy, and an ending with mixed political values. For example, a scene at the end promotes the socialist idea that the people in a country should share in the profits from developing the nation’s natural resources. The problem with such notions is that developing natural resources also usually requires lots of money and lots of employees. That’s why companies and corporations raise money by getting investors and selling shares to stockholders, who are then rewarded for their investments. Government leaders who end up nationalizing a nation’s resources to benefit the nation’s citizens, often end up stealing the profits from the citizens to fund large bureaucracies and to benefit the leaders at the top. They also frequently end up stifling the ambition and enterprise of its own citizens and creating more poverty, not less. Citizens love to get profits from developing natural resources, but they don’t want to invest their own money and hard work into that development.