Ex-Rent Hell presents… Freejack

Ex-Rent Hell is a col­umn ded­i­cat­ed to the seami­er side of the 1980s VHS boom. Each week, ERH selects a film from this cursed era and asks one sim­ple ques­tion: what went wrong?

There is a gold­en moment in the open­ing cred­its of rose-tint­ed US sit­com throw­back Hap­py Days in which pip­squeak local hard­man Arthur Fon­zarel­li takes time out from bul­ly­ing Milwaukee’s gooni­est High School­ers to pop into the bath­room of Al’s Din­er and fresh­en up. He is just about to run a comb through his proud Ital­ian pom­padour when his reflec­tion reveals an inar­guable truth: there is sim­ply no way to improve upon his cur­rent state of exquis­ite­ly groomed phys­i­cal per­fec­tion. He’s a snowflake. He’s a rain­bow. He’s a tiny leather uni­corn. Heyyy!

The Fonz’ promethean fol­lic­u­lar epiphany (PFE) comes to mind upon read­ing amazon.com’s bald and with­er­ing out­line of 1992 Jagger/​Estevez sci-fi curios­i­ty, Free­jack. The hilar­i­ous one-line descrip­tion boils the film down to its mol­e­c­u­lar build­ing blocks thus­ly: ​“Boun­ty hunters from the future trans­port a doomed race-car dri­ver to 2009 New York, where his mind will be replaced with that of a dead bil­lion­aire.” Sub­lime in its ridicule, it rivals a TV list­ing this col­umn once saw which gen­uine­ly trum­pet­ed a screen­ing of Avatar with the line: ​“A para­plegic goes to the moon.”

A mix of Total Recall in reverse and Blade Run­ner on a sun­ny day, it is no sur­prise to learn that Free­jack was adapt­ed from stone-hatch­et mad post-hip­py lit­er­ary psy­cho­naut Philip K Dick’s short sto­ry ​‘Qui­et, the Bas­soons of Tomor­row’. A Carte­sian whirl of doubt, mem­o­ry and zero‑G future-sex first pub­lished in pulp sta­ple Astound­ing­ly Unlike­ly Tales, the orig­i­nal con­tained no boun­ty hunters, no motor­sports and no strut­ting Cock­ney igua­nas. No matter.

Flash for­ward to the ​’90s. It’s Ham­mer time! We got prod­uct place­ment, we got Quan­tel Paint­box com­put­er graph­ics, we got Emilio hot from Young Guns, we got Jag­ger hot from [cita­tion need­ed], we got heavy-com­ers Jesus Jones on the sound­track. The rest can sure­ly take care of itself. And most­ly it does. It’s about as exhil­a­rat­ing as expe­ri­enc­ing con­ti­nen­tal shift on a real-time basis, but box­es are weari­ly ticked.

Estevez boasts bog-brush hair, a seam­less, expres­sion­less face, shiny but­ton eyes, and could eas­i­ly pass for an anthro­poid Mup­pet. He scur­ries from one deriv­a­tive sci-fi vignette to anoth­er bel­low­ing ​“What year is this? Who’s the Pres­i­dent?!?” Mick, resplen­dent in an out­sized black fight­er pilot’s hel­met (the hel­met is black, not the fight­er pilot – there is no fight­er pilot) that lends him the aspect an evil, wiz­ened ant, is in mild­ly hot pur­suit, with a per­for­mance that flits between camp, avun­cu­lar, josh­ing and white-eyed glos­so­lalia. At one point he eats a Fabergé egg for no rea­son at all.

And yet His Satan­ic Majesty’s stunt cast­ing is far from the only notable fea­ture of Free­jack. What about that dead bil­lion­aire? Like anoth­er epic sci-fi para­ble about man’s over­reach­ing grasp, Free­jack is two hours of pon­der­ous vine­gar strokes in search of a splashy mon­ey shot. But where­as the finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey was con­tent to kalei­do­scope beyond the infi­nite in search of its pitch black pearl, Free­jack tra­vers­es far dim­mer ter­rain: the flak­ing inte­ri­or of Antho­ny ​‘Hic!’ Hop­kins’ dreamatorium.

Why is he dressed as Shake­speare? Are we in a cathe­dral? Oops – he’s behind you! ​“Have a cig­ar.” Now we’re on top of a sky­scraper. In an igloo. So much stock footage… An eagle screams. Hop­po walks out of a mir­ror dressed in rid­ing pinks and a som­brero. Juras­sic Park is one short year away yet look at the state of this! Now there’s light­ning. Com­ing out of his mouth. The dead billionaire’s mouth is alive with light­ning. The doomed race-car dri­ver has mor­phed into a Mup­pet. The boun­ty hunters dine on Dead Sea Scrolls while The Fonz screams in vain. We’re wait­ing for a train and the water in our head is not dis­sim­i­lar from the land­scape and a tor­toise lays on its back, its bel­ly bak­ing in the hot sun. But we’re not help­ing. Why aren’t we help­ing, Ama­zon? Why?

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in LWLies 59: the Tomor­row­land issue.