Who is Grant Orion?
That is the question at the heart of 1994’s Freefall.
Played by Eric Roberts, Grant Orion claims to be a former Hollywood stuntman who now spends most of his time jumping off of cliffs and skydiving. When photographer Katy Mazur (Pamela Gidley) first spots Grant, he is climbing to the top of a cliff in Swaziland and jumping off. Katy, who has been sent to the country to get a photograph of a taita falcon, finds herself obsessively snapping his picture. Later, after she meets Grant, she ends up cheating on her fiancé with him. The fiancé in question is Dex Dellums (Jeff Fahey), who is not only engaged to marry Katy but who is also her editor. He’s the one who sent her to Swaziland in the first place.
Who is Grant Orion? (And who, in the world, actually has a name like Grant Orion?) After Grant saves Katy from some gunmen, he explains that he’s not only a former stuntman but he’s also an agent of Interpol. However, Dex claims that Grant is lying. Dex tells her that Grant is a former stuntman who was run out of Hollywood after a stunt went wrong and now, he’s basically a mercenary. Katy doesn’t know who to trust as violence breaks out all around her.
Freefall starts out as a standard erotic thriller, with Roberts and Gidley exchanging smoldering looks and uttering heated dialogue. Before long, though, it turns into a thriller with Katy not being sure who to trust. There’s a lot of gunfire. There’s a lot of over the top action. Some of the scenes of action are so over-the-top that the film almost feels like it might be a parody. The plot itself is next to impossible to follow but who needs a plot when you’ve got Eric Roberts and Jeff Fahey sharing the screen together? Roberts is all smoldering intensity while Fahey seems to be having the time of his life playing the smarmy Dex.
Along with getting the best out of Roberts and Fahey. director John Irvin also manages to get some truly beautiful shots of the mountains of Swaziland. Though the scenes of Roberts climbing the mountains were clearly done by a real stuntman (and not Grant Orion), they’re still effectively shot. When we first see Grant jump off the mountain, the imagery is breath-takingly beautiful. At times, it’s hard not to regret that the entire film wasn’t just about Grant jumping off of mountains. All of the gunfire gets in the way of the main attraction.
Today, we’re so used to seeing Eric Roberts in small cameo roles that it’s easy to forget that he started out his career in starring roles. Freefall is a silly film but it’s undeniably entertaining, in the way that the best direct-to-video erotic action thrillers often were. Don’t even try to follow the plot. Just enjoy the mountains and the scenes of Roberts and Fahey competing to see who can out-smolder the other.
Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:
- Paul’s Case (1980)
- Star 80 (1983)
- Runaway Train (1985)
- To Heal A Nation (1988)
- Best of the Best (1989)
- Blood Red (1989)
- The Ambulance (1990)
- The Lost Capone (1990)
- Best of the Best II (1993)
- Love, Cheat, & Steal (1993)
- Voyage (1993)
- Love Is A Gun (1994)
- Sensation (1994)
- Dark Angel (1996)
- Doctor Who (1996)
- Most Wanted (1997)
- The Alternate (2000)
- Mercy Streets (2000)
- Tripfall (2000)
- Raptor (2001)
- Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 (2001)
- Strange Frequency (2001)
- Wolves of Wall Street (2002)
- Border Blues (2004)
- Mr. Brightside (2004)
- Six: The Mark Unleased (2004)
- We Belong Together (2005)
- Hey You (2006)
- Cyclops (2008)
- Depth Charge (2008)
- Amazing Racer (2009)
- The Chaos Experiment (2009)
- In The Blink of an Eye (2009)
- Bed & Breakfast (2010)
- Enemies Among Us (2010)
- The Expendables (2010)
- Groupie (2010)
- Sharktopus (2010)
- Beyond The Trophy (2012)
- The Dead Want Women (2012)
- Deadline (2012)
- The Mark (2012)
- Miss Atomic Bomb (2012)
- The Night Never Sleeps (2012)
- Assault on Wall Street (2013)
- Bonnie And Clyde: Justified (2013)
- Lovelace (2013)
- The Mark: Redemption (2013)
- The Perfect Summer (2013)
- Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End (2013)
- Revelation Road 2: The Sea of Glass and Fire (2013)
- Self-Storage (2013)
- Sink Hole (2013)
- A Talking Cat!?! (2013)
- This Is Our Time (2013)
- Bigfoot vs DB Cooper (2014)
- Doc Holliday’s Revenge (2014)
- Eternity: The Movie (2014)
- Inherent Vice (2014)
- Road to the Open (2014)
- Rumors of War (2014)
- So This Is Christmas (2014)
- Amityville Death House (2015)
- Deadly Sanctuary (2015)
- A Fatal Obsession (2015)
- Las Vegas Story (2015)
- Sorority Slaughterhouse (2015)
- Stalked By My Doctor (2015)
- Story of Eva (2015)
- Enemy Within (2016)
- Hunting Season (2016)
- Joker’s Poltergeist (2016)
- Prayer Never Fails (2016)
- Stalked By My Doctor: The Return (2016)
- The Wrong Roommate (2016)
- Dark Image (2017)
- The Demonic Dead (2017)
- Black Wake (2018)
- Frank and Ava (2018)
- Stalked By My Doctor: Patient’s Revenge (2018)
- The Wrong Teacher (2018)
- Clinton Island (2019)
- Monster Island (2019)
- The Reliant (2019)
- The Savant (2019)
- Seven Deadly Sins (2019)
- Stalked By My Doctor: A Sleepwalker’s Nightmare (2019)
- The Wrong Mommy (2019)
- Exodus of a Prodigal Son (2020)
- Free Lunch Express (2020)
- Hard Luck Love Song (2020)
- Her Deadly Groom (2020)
- Law of Attraction (2020)
- Top Gunner (2020)
- Deadly Nightshade (2021)
- The Elevator (2021)
- Just What The Doctor Ordered (2021)
- Killer Advice (2021)
- Megaboa (2021)
- Night Night (2021)
- The Poltergeist Diaries (2021)
- The Rebels of PT-218 (2021)
- Red Prophecies (2021)
- A Town Called Parable (2021)
- The Wrong Mr. Right (2021)
- Bleach (2022)
- Dawn (2022)
- My Dinner With Eric (2022)
- 69 Parts (2022)
- The Rideshare Killer (2022)
- The Wrong High School Sweetheart (2022)
- The Company We Keep (2023)
- D.C. Down (2023)
- If I Can’t Have You (2023)
- Megalodon: The Frenzy (2023)
- Aftermath (2024)
- Bad Substitute (2024)
- Devil’s Knight (2024)
- Insane Like Me? (2024)
- Space Sharks (2024)
- The Wrong Life Coach (2024)
- Broken Church (2025)
- Shakey Grounds (2025)
- When It Rains In L.A. (2025)
Through the Shattered Lens 