Life on the Line

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.