You may have seen a coming-attraction trailer for Frequency, which uses the "something for everyone" pitch in wooing audiences.

 You've got your Twilight Zone-style science fiction concept -- a man living in 1999 communicates with his dead father in 1969 over a ham radio.

 You've got your suspense -- their communication inadvertently causes a serial killer to survive an accident and kill again.

 And you've got your sentiment -- the trailer ends with a heartfelt "I love you dad" / "I love you too, son" exchange that will cause many an eyeball to go rolling upwards.

 The wacky concept is TimeCop meets Field of Dreams with a dash of The Silence of the Lambs. But the truth is that Frequency isn't nearly as awful as its trailer.

 The year is 1999 and troubled detective John Sullivan (Jim Caviezel) is playing with his dad's old ham radio during a rare occurrence of aurora borealis over New York City. The only guy he contacts turns out to be Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid), John's firefighter father ... who died on the job 30 years earlier. Frank too is playing with the radio during a northern lights display, but the year is 1969.

 Subsequent to their conversation, John succeeds in changing his dad's fate by alerting him to the mistake that would have killed him. But in the process of saving his father, a nurse-stalking serial killer called the Nightingale is also inadvertently spared from death so he can kill again. One of his future victims may be Frank's nurse wife and John's mother Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell). Desperately communicating over their ham radio, the cop and the firefighter attempt to collaborate on a desperate effort to catch the killer and once again alter the past.

 Get past Quaid's dubious Queens accent and his performance is a welcome throwback to the cocksure attitude he copped in films such as The Big Easy. And Caviezel admirably keeps a straight face through dialogue that might have confounded a lesser actor.

 Director Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear) manages to keep the movie's two-pronged timelines from tangling in a knot until the final showdown sequence, which frankly raises more Star Trek nerd-type questions than it answers.

 But this ain't American Beauty, so it's best not to look closer. Be content that in its own fancifully melodramatic way, Frequency's appeal as a unique little thriller doesn't get lost in the static.

(This film is rated PG)

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