On the Line

I only read the brief IMDB synopsis and a few of the user reviews before plonking down $2.99 to stream this, but I thought it was well worth the money. Best Picture material....this ain't, but it is a solid B-movie and goes to show that you don't need to spend a fortune making a movie as long as you have a creative story and a quality cast...kudos to Mel Gibson and Kevin Dillon for having some fun with their characters.

This title was on a rental sale on the streaming platform I use, but I would have felt equally satisfied if it had cost $5.99. This is only my second review after using IMDB for 20 years. Writing this review is my testament to the entertainment I derived from watching this film and my thanks to all of the people involved that worked to bring this fun film to fruition.

I'm sure I'll watch this again in a few years and I plan to recommend it to several friends.

I'm not sure why there are so many negative reviews of this, as my wife and I (and she is hard to please) both really enjoyed this film.

Yes, there are plenty of riffs from other films, as you'd expect with this kind of storyline, but that's not unusual in any film, and there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns to keep you interested and the film was ended very well.

Gibson fell out of favour with filmmakers for too long and is now rebuilding his career in later life, and while he is a little hammy at times in this, and certainly takes cues from his Ransom performance, he is still a fine actor and he steers this film along nicely. All of the supporting cast, many relatively unknown, give solid performances, nothing too outstanding, but nothing terrible either.

Overall then, an enjoyable thriller with some cool twists that might surprise you. A solid watch.

This starts off really well, a good premise and a slightly weird choice of opener. So far so good. Then it just descends into lazy writing. Bad performances from a good 50% of the ensemble and a totally lunatic ending which I won't spoil (if you get that far).

Mel Gibson has his detractors, and I get it, he's had a shocking personal life and expressed some vile views. It has to be said though, Mel is a good actor and knows his way around a scene. Without him I'm pretty certain I'd have made this a two star review. He brings a charisma and a suite of good choices for most of the movie, but by the third act - actually at the start of the second act even Mel can't keep up with hapless direction, the weird dialogue and the lack of any creative spark to cover up the deficiencies in the narrative. In many ways it passes the time, but can feel by the end a massive waste of time.

Very enjoyable entertainment, good twists and a fabulous Mel Gibson. No masterpiece but a nice flick!

Don't understand the bad reviews.

In my book it's all about managing expectations. If you choose a movie because the plot line interests you, you like the cast and you're in for a relaxing few hours in front of the telly then you're rarely disappointed.

Although if you are a movie Connaisseur or critic, you might want to apply different criteria to pick your movies to avoid disappointment.

In this case it did what it said on the tin and provided very enjoyable light entertainment, a good portion of suspense and a good ending.

I think the movie needed someone with a strong villain voice thats all .voices like keifer Sutherland (phone booth),James spader ( The blacklist) or maybe Michael Sheen (unthinkable). Besides that the movie was not bad at all .Mel Gibson played his part very good as a lead character.i mean its not a bad thing to select or give new coming actors and actresses a chance but sometimes its wise to select the best quality so that your movie can sell. I still have faith in you. I mean Quinton Tarantino invested/picked best characters in Django and took awards for that...I think you can also do better.