3/3/2024 0 Comments Mountain horizon lineI'm no longer really sure why I thought watching this could be worthwhile. What small scattering of good ideas the screenplay does possess are rendered sterile by the same terrible confluence of tedium that damns the stars in this mess. David barely has any screen time, and this movie otherwise coerces all into performances that are far beneath them. I'm not familiar with Alexander Dreymon, but I know Williams and David are very capable actors. These are 90 agonizingly endless minutes. Meanwhile the thrills, drama, and emotional weight that the scenario should inherently bear are gravely dampened by not just that grueling overabundance of tropes but also tawdry, excruciatingly familiar exposition an incredulously building series of circumstances to artificially escalate urgency grossly uninventive, tired and tiresome dialogue dubious screenwriting shortcuts that couldn't possibly hold water in real life characters written with strength or vulnerability that comes and goes as the screenplay unconvincingly demands and a perfectly undistinguished ending. What isn't predictable is mostly a matter of what sparing few common cinema notions the film doesn't employ. This is about as unremarkable, unexciting, and heavily laden with desperate convention as a supposed adventure thriller could be. Within about ten minutes of the movie beginning, I was regretting my decision. But I look at the cast and see Allison Williams - I like her! And Keith David? I like him, too! I'll watch just about anything, so I thought I'd give 'Horizon line' a chance. I entered with at best mixed expectations - reception has clearly been less than favorable overall. It's still a watchable fare one that ought to be seen and forgotten. Many of the green-screen shots embedded with CGI look a little off, especially the ones from the exterior of the plane. When the performances lack panache, director Mikael Marcimain only has the technical aspects to retain viewer attention. The only few times they do, they mouth ridiculous lines like "Omg, that must have hurt so much. The plot-point is used purely as a stress-inducing device because the characters can't have a regular conversation between them. There's the fuel outage plot-point that drives most of the (outrageous) decisions and stunts in the film. This implies that the film completely relies on extracting tension due to their current situation alone (that of manoeuvring a plane to safety without a pilot). The protagonists, played by Allison Williams and Alexander Dreymon, are total whatevers, without fleshed-out stories (or even a solid verbal reason) to back them up. Keith David as the pilot who dies early on is the only character that showed some semblance of being likeable. In the case of Horizon Line, we get neither. But the advantage there was the underlying mystery and the solid lead performances. Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken previously wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane, a sci-fi thriller (with undertones of horror) that I enjoyed. The only interesting thing about it is that one-line thread - stuck on a plane with the pilot dead. Horizon Line feels like a one-line plot stretched into a 90-minute film with lead characters that have negligible chemistry between them and not worth caring much for.
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