FREELANCE
Starring: John Cena, Alison Brie, Juan Pablo Raba, Alice Eve, Marton Csokas, and Christian Slater
Director: Pierre Morel
QUENTIN
Both John Cena and Alison Brie have proven themselves to be funny, charming, and capable of delivering dramatic nuance. That said, Freelance is a blemish on both their records. It’s like someone tried to remake The Rundown from memory. I’ll give it a little credit for not being quite as predictable as I expected, but between the jokes that don’t land and the lifeless action scenes (not to mention one sequence with Expendables 4-level green screening, which is to say terrible), almost everyone involved, except for Juan Pablo Raba (a genuine and charismatic delight), should be ashamed of themselves.
NICK
Although we've already learned that John Cena is best suited to comedies, Freelance once again attempts to make him an action star. The results make The Marine look like a tour de force. Where do I start? Cena and Alison Brie have no chemistry, the comedy is non-existent, the action is thoroughly generic, and I found myself checking out multiple times in spite of being wide awake. Early in his career, Dwayne Johnson branched out of WWE to do a film called The Rundown. Freelance is basically a worse version of that film in every single way. This one’s bargain bin bound.
