An accidental cross-time radio link connects father and son across 30 years. The son tries to save his father's life, but then must fix the consequences.
A rare atmospheric phenomenon allows a New York City firefighter to communicate with his son 30 years in the future via HAM radio. The son uses this opportunity to warn the father of his impending death in a warehouse fire, and manages to save his life. However, what he does not realize is that changing history has triggered a new set of tragic events, including the murder of his mother. The two men must now work together, 30 years apart, to find the murderer before he strikes so that they can change history--again.—<[email protected]>
Thirty-six year old homicide detective John Sullivan lives in the same Queens, New York house in which he grew up with his firefighter father Frank Sullivan and nurse mother Julia Sullivan. Frank died on October 12, 1969 (when John was only six) on duty in a warehouse fire. Despite Frank dying when John was so young, John remembers his father well as he has a keepsake book of photos and news clippings about Frank, who was a huge Mets fan. Almost thirty years to the day of Frank's death, John finds Frank's old ham radio, which Frank used to use all the time to speak to people around the world. A discussion about the 1969 World Series with the first person he makes contact with on the radio makes John ultimately come to the realization that he is speaking to his father who is using the exact same ham radio and sitting at the exact same desk in the exact same house exactly thirty years earlier. Although they don't know the reason for being able to contact each other, John tries to use whatever knowledge he has to help his father, especially in averting the cause of his death. But John and Frank learn that knowledge is a powerful tool which can result in both good and bad as John works on a "new" thirty year old on-going case of murdered nurses, the case coined the "Nightingale murders" which has a personal connection to the Sullivan family.—Huggo
John Sullivan (Caviezel) is a New York City homicide officer who is traumatized for 30 years following the death of his father, Frank (Quaid), After finding Frank's HAM radio, John begins talking to Frank, 30 years into the future. Together, they change the past but have to find a way to stop a serial killer from murdering John's Mom & Frank's wife with a 30 year gap.—Ryan Harder <[email protected]>
In 1969 New York, a gasoline tanker overturns on a highway ramp, spilling fuel into an electrical substation below ground and trapping two workers. Among the responding firefighters is veteran Frank Sullivan (Dennis Quaid), who goes underground to rescue the workers against the direction of his commander. Despite the rising level of fuel and the sparking created by damaged electronics, Frank and another firefighter pull the workers out and escape just before a spark ignites a huge explosion. Frank is the last one out and escapes the fireball of the explosion by a mere fraction of a second.Frank returns safely home to his wife Julia (Elizabeth Mitchell) and young son Johnny (Jim Caviezel) on Oct 10th 1969. Frank has a large radio antenna in his house.
On Oct 10th, 1999, John Sullivan is an NYPD detective still living in his childhood home. His girlfriend Samantha (Melissa Errico) leaves him because she believes he is emotionally shut off, the result of his father Frank dying in a fire when John was six years old.
John's lifelong friend and neighbor, Gordo (Noah Emmerich), stops by with his young son Gordy (Michael Cera) and finds a Heathkit single-side-band ham radio that once belonged to Frank, but fails to get it working.The night before the 30th anniversary of his father's death, John, moderately drunk, is surprised to find the radio operating during a particularly intense occurrence of the Aurora Borealis and has a brief conversation with another man concerning the 1969 World Series, which John is able to recount in specific detail.He realizes from this and other details (Frank calls his son "little chief", which is exactly what John's father used to call him Moreover they live at the same address and have the same radio call sign) that he is communicating with his father on the same date in 1969. When Frank accidentally leaves a burn mark on the desk in 1969, the same shows up in 1999 to John.John warns him of the mistake on October 12th, 1969, that led to his death.
At first, Frank is alarmed and refuses to believe, but the next day (first the baseball game turns out exactly the way 1999 John said it would be), while rescuing a runaway from a burning warehouse, he recalls John's warning, changes his course (instead of going down the staircase, he slides down the fire escape), and survives the fire.In 1999, John is suddenly struck with new memories of his father surviving until 1989. He and Frank reconnect, and they share details of their lives. Now, they are also able to communicate with Frank carving messages into the desk wood in 1969, and John reading them on his desk in 1999. John says that he didn't marry and is a cop.John warns Frank that he will eventually die in 1989 of lung cancer. With no further comment, Frank throws his cigarettes in the trash.
The next day in 1999, John discovers that his present has been changed in other unexpected ways. He and Frank have inadvertently prevented the death of the "Nightingale", a serial killer who originally murdered three nurses in the 1960s and was never caught.In the new modified reality, Nightingale has now killed ten women, including John's own mother Julia on Oct 22nd, 1969. John is now flooded with new memories of his mother's death. John is confused and goes to meet Samantha, who has no memory of John.To save her and the other future victims, John enlists Frank's help in stopping the Nightingale before he can kill again. At first Frank begs off, claiming "I'm just a fireman," but John is insistent.
Following information from John about the killings, Frank saves the first victim, but before he can rescue the second, the Nightingale subdues him, steals his driver's license, and plants it on the victim to frame Frank for the murder.Meanwhile John reckoned that the serial killer would be a known associate of his first victim. Going through the high school year book of the first victim, he finds a match with Darryl Simpson (Rocco Sisto), a convicted sexual predator, and with a motive that he was interested in the first victim in high school but she never reciprocated. John brings Darryl in for questioning, but he denies having killed anyone. Darryl has to be released as there is no evidence against him.
When Frank relates his experience, John realizes Frank's wallet has the Nightingale's fingerprints. John asks his father to hide the wallet somewhere in the house where John will find it 30 years later. Using the preserved fingerprints from the wallet, John identifies the Nightingale as Jack Shepard (Shawn Doyle), a former NYPD detective.
In the original time-line, Shepard was a hospital patient under the care of Julia; when she left after learning of Frank's death (in the warehouse fire), an inexperienced doctor accidentally administered a medication that caused a fatal allergic reaction. Because Frank survived, Julia was there at the hospital to prevent the error, thereby saving the Nightingale's life -- but allowing her to become a subsequent victim.
In 1999, John confronts Jack and lets him know that John knows that he is the Nightingale murderer.In 1969, Frank's close friend (and John's future boss) detective Satch DeLeon (Andre Braugher) arrests Frank on suspicion of murder; he resists, and the radio is knocked over and damaged. At the station, Frank attempts to explain to a highly skeptical Satch that he got his information about the Nightingale from speaking to his grown-up son John on the radio.
He proves his innocence to Satch by accurately predicting the course of the 1969 World Series, including the extremely unusual Game 5 shoe polish play. Frank escapes from the police station and breaks into Shepard's apartment, where he finds trophies from the murders. Shepard arrives and attacks Frank, who fends him off and, apparently, kills him after a foot chase and plunge into the river, thus ensuring Julia's survival. Satch, having realized that Frank was telling the truth, goes to Shepard's apartment and finds the victims' jewelry, exonerating Frank. At the crime scene, the police search for Shepard's body, but find nothing.
Frank returns home and repairs the radio. While talking over the radio that night, Frank and John are each attacked by the 1969 and 1999 versions of Shepard. In 1969, Frank blows off Shepard's hand with a shotgun and he flees. In 1999, as John fights off Shepard, the house changes rapidly around them and Shepard's hand disappears. Shepard pulls a gun on John and prepares to fire. At that point, a now mid-60s Frank appears in the doorway and blows Shepard away with his shotgun. He and John tearfully embrace, the time-lines now repaired.
The film concludes with a softball game including John and his own young son, his now-wife Samantha (expecting another baby), his healthy and happy gray-haired parents, Satch, and Gordo, who has now become wealthy thanks to a stock tip fed to him in the past by John -- posing as a magical "Santa Claus," advising six-year-old Gordo to remember the "magic word" "Yahoo" convincing him to invest in the internet company in his adulthood.
