The new John Cena and Alison Brie-led action comedy Freelance squeaked out with practically no marketing or buzz, and grabbed just $2.1 million on its debut in seventh place at the box office. Why? Well, apparently it’s a stinker!
It has joined the very non-elite club of movies with a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This means it is in the bracket with movies like Jaws The Revenge and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
Curiously, the audience score is a bang average 77% but, then, we know all about the differences between critics’ scores and audience’s scores. When this is taken in the round, it achieves the 206/10. Others in that region include 2020’s The Last Days of American Crime (2.6) and London Fields (2.7). The guys at Collider went on a research mission and could only find two movies with worse ratings – Travolta-led Gotti (2.2) and the Adam Sandler western comedy The Ridiculous 6 (2.4).
When you read the synopsis, you struggle to understand how they could get it so wrong? Freelance follows ex-special forces operative Mason Pettis (Cena) who is stuck in a dead-end desk job when he reluctantly takes on a freelance gig to provide private security for disgraced journalist Claire Wellington (Brie).
Wellington, trying to make a comeback, has landed a major interview with the ruthless and impeccably dressed dictator Juan Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba) of the country of Pandoña. When a military coup breaks out just as she’s about to get the scoop of a lifetime, the unlikely trio must figure out how to survive the jungle AND each other in order to make it out alive.
It’s Romancing The Stone or The Lost City. How can you mess that up? Especially when the director is Pierre Morel (Taken) and your cast includes reliable players like Alice Eve, Marton Csokas, and Christian Slater.
Poor old John Cena. Killed off in Fast X, and going nowhere outside the fambly. Peacemaker to the rescue?
Freelance is out in cinemas now and I kinda want to see it, to see how they got it wrong.
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