I Can’t Wait to See John Cena in His New Action Movie About the Gig Economy

The action film director Pierre Morel has long had his finger on the pulse of modern society, starting with his breakout feature Taken—a searing and relatable portrait of a middle-aged dad’s helplessness in the face of a changing society, with Liam Neeson as a hapless ex–CIA agent who doesn’t want his daughter to go on a cool trip to Paris. “I have a particular set of parenting skills,” he says sadly to the exciting Albanian entrepreneur who’s taken his daughter out for a night on the town, and sure enough, those skills cause him to spoil everyone’s fun European vacation.

Morel’s newest film, starring John Cena and Alison Brie, comes to theaters Friday, and while I’ve seen just the trailer, it’s clear that once again Morel is addressing a crucial contemporary issue. This time, it’s the gig economy and job insecurity. The movie is called Freelance, and I am delighted that Hollywood is finally taking seriously the plight of the underpaid, overworked freelancer.

Cena plays former special forces operative Mason Pettits, who’s hired by Christian Slater to guard a journalist (Brie) as she interviews the president of the fictional South American nation of Paldonia, portrayed in the trailer as a comedic hellscape of poverty and corruption. (It’s OK! It’s fictional!) The trailer is heavy on the machine guns and explosions and shirtless John Cena and stuff, which of course I understand—you gotta get the butts in seats before you can educate them about the harsh realities of self-employment. But I’m pretty excited to see John Cena experience everything that your typical freelancer experiences, including, presumably:

• A 15-minute scene in which John Cena has to create an account on Christian Slater’s new payment portal, but the portal won’t recognize his identity because he’s not a registered vendor, but he can’t become a registered vendor until he creates an account on the portal.

• John Cena explains to his estranged wife that no, this particular gig doesn’t offer health insurance, but Christian Slater has told him he’s pretty sure they’re adding head count next year or, worst case, the year after.

• John Cena uploads his invoice to the system, but the system rejects it because it must include an “invoice number,” so he types INVOICE NUMBER: 000000001 on the Word doc and resubmits.

• John Cena tries to remember which one is the routing number and which one is the account number.

• Alison Brie asks John Cena if he has a company credit card to pay for a rescue helicopter out of Paldonia, and he has to admit that they don’t give those to freelancers.

• Christian Slater is very responsive for the first few days but then completely stops answering emails until three weeks later, when he writes, “Sorry, bud! Been skiing—you know how vacations are 😎”

• John Cena fills out a W-9.

• John Cena’s mom asks him how work is going, and he tells her about this gig, and she is silent for 11 seconds and then tells him she thinks it’s unacceptable to send an employee to a dangerous foreign country where the dogs just pee on walls and the children are rude to you, and he should just call the company on the telephone and explain that to them, and he says, “I’m not an employee, Mom. I’m a freelancer.”

• John Cena sends an email reading, “Just a quick nudge re: payment—thanks!”

• At the end, after John Cena saves Alison Brie and finally gets paid, he gets an offer to teach a class at Special Forces School, setting up the action-packed sequel, Adjunct.

It’s possible, of course, that this film is just a mindless action comedy that they couldn’t come up with a real title for, so they just called it Freelance for no particular reason. I wouldn’t expect that kind of thing from a social-realist filmmaker like Pierre Morel, but I guess we all must struggle under the yoke of profit, even the director—who is, in a way, if you think about it, a freelancer too. But even if it turns out that Freelance has nothing to do with freelancing, I’m glad that at the very least, in the scene with shirtless John Cena, Freelance offers a totally accurate portrait of every freelancer’s abs.