Life on the Line

Watched this tonight - Watt a treat, its absolutely shocking, electrifying and keeps pylon on the suspense, it really amps up towards the end, and manages to fuse and splice current day tech with raw acting power, if you want a film that makes you go "ohm my god" you cant do better than this John Tra-volt-a charged joule of a movie. This really sparks the imagination and overloads the senses, worth the watch. Follow it up by watching the new program on the documentary channel about power workers searching the top floor of abandoned power stations for old valuables - Cash in the static.

I was so looking forward to this film which is classified as an action/drama film. Mrs. Shullivan and I both worked for the local utility company and we are aware that the risk these lineman (line persons) take working on high voltage systems is real, is extremely dangerous and has led to some unfortunate and untimely deaths.

Life on the Line seems to portray all the lineman in this film as having personal demons, a group of hard drinking brothers, who appear to be standing in line waiting to get themselves killed in the line of duty. Even worse than the depressed characters of the main stars of this feature film were all the clichés that were used so often that I started gagging on my popcorn.

The film did hold my attention for the first half, but as more and more clichés were expressed by the so-called heroes, and the irritating caption at the bottom of the screen kept appearing with the countdown days to the day of the big storm, you had to know someone was going to lose their "Life on the Line" eh?

So the storm comes in more than just by the usual way (no spoiler here) and we see how when a life is lost a new generation of potential line persons are born. I don't think we have to worry about seeing a sequel to this film. Lights out....nothing more to report.

The movie has SOME entertainment value to, at least, watch it once; for that I gave it a 3, but, oh my god....

I have read some of the reviews from some actual lineman that testify to how ridiculous this is. The soap opera aspects, the cliched dialog and circumstances that are delivered to us will make you cringe; this is just extremely lazy writing and film-making.

Yes, there is actually a character called "poke-chop", for crying out loud.

The lineman of this country deserve to be recognized, but not like this.

John Travolta is a line man, one of those guys you see in a hard helmet and red vest on power lines, doing something dangerous and obscure.... and the power running. Lives depend on that power, and he's got s pregnant niece, her boyfriend as his new, unobservant apprentice, and a storm on the way.

Watching this attempt to mythologize another form of Texas Hard Man in the aftermath of at least 86 Texans dying because their power grid went out last month.... well it interferes with the impulse; it's hard to print the legend with the facts still fresh in your mind. It's also startling to hear Travolta with a twang overlaying his usual accent, but to my untutored ears, he's pretty good, his face buried under a beard. If's a good updating of the standard western tropes. Perhaps when this year's events have faded, it will seem better.

I realize this is a movie, but some level of realism is expected to make it believable. Not only does the movie show all kinds of ridiculous electrical mistakes with the grid / system, but of course...because linemen are blue collar workers, they have to be portrayed as drunkards and complete idiots. To top it off, the producers can't even attempt to get the geography close to what is supposed to be portrayed in the story. Trust me, there are no oceans, massive lakes, or mountains around Lubbock. And, any major storm coming in off the Gulf of Mexico would take at least a day to make it halfway across Texas. Again, I realize it is a movie, but at least TRY people. Don't pay to watch this film, rather watch it on Amazon Prime or some way you get to see it for free. It's okay to watch on the couch one day when you aren't feeling well...it is at least better than reality-TV...but not by much.