Freelance

There is a specific kind of cinematic purgatory reserved for movies that look like forty million bucks but feel like they were manufactured in a lab to be watched exclusively on a seatback screen somewhere over the Atlantic. Freelance (2023) is the absolute king of this domain. It arrived in theaters with the quiet thud of a dropped sandbag, a mid-budget action-comedy that seemed to vanish from the cultural consciousness before the popcorn in the lobby had even gone stale. Yet, in our current era of "Content" with a capital C, there’s something almost rebellious about a movie this unashamedly mid-tier.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while trying to scrub a week-old pepperoni pizza stain out of my rug, and honestly, the rhythmic scrubbing paired surprisingly well with the film’s "just happy to be here" energy. It’s a relic of an era we are currently living through—the streaming-adjacent theatrical release that feels like a ghost before it even hits the digital storefronts.

The Algorithm’s Accidental Action Hero

At the center of this jungle-trek-gone-wrong is John Cena as Mason Pettits, a retired Special Forces operator who has traded in his tactical gear for the soul-crushing boredom of life as a struggling lawyer. Cena is in full "disappointed dad" mode here, which is a gear he’s perfected lately. He has this incredible physical presence—he looks like a refrigerator carved out of granite—but his face constantly broadcasts a sense of mild, polite confusion. It’s a perfect fit for a guy who gets pulled out of retirement by his old boss (Christian Slater, leaning into his signature smirk) to provide security for a disgraced journalist.

That journalist is Claire Wellington, played by Alison Brie. She’s looking for the scoop of a lifetime: an exclusive interview with Juan Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba), the flamboyant dictator of a fictional South American country called Pandores. Brie is one of those actors who can make a poorly written line sound like high art through sheer force of will, but even she struggles with a script that reads like it was translated from English to Esperanto and back again by a faulty AI.

The chemistry between Cena and Brie isn't exactly romantic; it’s more like two people who both realized they signed the same contract and decided to make the best of a long weekend. When a military coup breaks out right in the middle of their sit-down, the trio is forced into the jungle. This is where the movie should have hit its stride, but instead, it settles into a comfortable, slightly confused trot.

The Dictator Who Stole the Show

The real surprise here—the "why am I still watching this?" factor—is Juan Pablo Raba. While most cinematic dictators are either terrifying monsters or buffoonish caricatures, his President Venegas is a weirdly charming, selfie-obsessed influencer who happens to run a country. He’s the highlight of the film, providing a layer of self-aware comedy that the rest of the production desperately needed.

Director Pierre Morel, the man who basically birthed the modern "geriatric action" subgenre with Taken (2008), feels oddly restrained here. You’d expect the action to be bone-crunching, but it often feels strangely sanitized. The shootouts are competent but lack that signature Morel grit. Apparently, the production filmed on location in Colombia, and while the scenery is gorgeous, the film never quite decides if it wants to be a gritty survival thriller or a wacky screwball comedy. It lands somewhere in the middle: the cinematic equivalent of a room-temperature Sprite. It’s fine, it’s bubbly, but you won't remember the taste five minutes later.

There’s a bit of behind-the-scenes tragedy to the film’s release, too. It hit theaters during the tail end of the 2023 strikes, meaning the cast couldn't hit the late-night circuit to charm audiences into seats. Combined with a budget that seemingly went toward Cena's insurance and some very loud explosions, the $9 million box office return was a bit of a disaster. In the age of franchise dominance, a standalone action-comedy like this needs a hook, and "John Cena in a jungle" just wasn't enough to pull people away from their Netflix queues.

Finding the Fun in the Flaws

Is Freelance a hidden masterpiece? Absolutely not. But in an era where every third movie is a multiversal crossover or a three-hour deconstruction of a toy line, there is a weird comfort in a movie that just wants to show you a helicopter crash and a few quips. It’s a throwback to the 90s "odd couple" actioners, just with better drones and more references to Twitter.

The supporting cast, including Alice Eve as Mason's wife and Marton Csokas as the villainous Colonel Koehorst, do exactly what they’re supposed to do: look concerned or menacing in high-definition. The film's biggest crime isn't being bad—it’s being remarkably unremarkable. Yet, as I finished my rug-scrubbing (the stain is still there, by the way), I realized I hadn't checked my phone once. In the attention economy, that’s a win.

Ultimately, this is a "laundry day" movie. It’s perfect for those moments when you want to see things blow up and watch John Cena look annoyed, but you don't want to engage your brain's higher functions. It’s a victim of the modern streaming-era bloat—a film that probably would have been a modest hit in 1996 but feels like a footnote today. If you find it on a streaming service and you’ve got two hours to kill, you could do a lot worse, but you could also do a lot better. It's a pleasant, forgettable hike through a very expensive jungle.