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There is no excuse for “Off the Grid.” Director Johnny Martin’s hackneyed action-thriller is woefully short on action and thrills, and generic enough to suggest it was scripted by AI. Indeed, this half-baked potboiler leaves one with the nagging suspicion that it was produced simply to meet some sort of quota, and cast with actors who came on board only because they lost bets.

Josh Duhamel does his best to get his Rambo on as Guy, a research scientist who skedaddles from his lab at the San Francisco-based Belcor Enterprises after he discovers his corporate overlord intends to weaponize his current project, a palm-sized energy-producing reactor. He goes to ground and reinvents himself as a survivalist in a wilderness area of Tennessee, where he resides in a reconverted Quonset hut, maintains an elaborate array of boobytraps and warning signals to ward off unwelcome visitors, and generally stays (as the title says) off the grid.

Johnny Martin’s Off the Grid could be about any Big Tech company nowadays. Josh Duhamel’s Guy, a super-smart scientist, develops a new type of technology that harbors the potential to change the world. However, the company he works for only sees dollars, choosing a route of weaponizing the tech. So, Guy grabs the goods and goes on the run – off the grid to be exact. The evil company locates him and decides it wants the tech back – by any means necessary. The script, written by James Agnew, chooses simplicity over swerves. There aren’t many surprises hidden in this tale, as it’s exactly as described above: Guy is on the run and the company tries to catch him. That’s it. Of course, there are auxiliary characters who assist Guy, such as María Elisa Camargo’s Josey and Michael Zapesotsky’s Chase, but Off the Grid comes...

Transformers star Josh Duhamel returns to the action as one part Rambo and two parts MacGyver in the new trailer for next month’s action flick, Off the Grid. Coming courtesy of Lionsgate, Off the Grid gives Duhamel the chance to deliver both brain and brawn as a scientist who finds himself the target of a shady organization.

Directed by Johnny Martin (Alone), Off the Grid stars Josh Duhamel alongside Greg Kinnear (As Good as It Gets), María Elisa Camargom (Warrior), Michael Zapesotsky (Dismissed), Ana Golja (Kill Em All 2), Michael Papajohn (Jurassic World), and Peter Stormare (John Wick: Chapter 2). The action outing is all set to land in theaters, On Demand, and On Digital on June 27, 2025. Alongside the newly released trailer, you can check out the official synopsis for Off the Grid below.

“After a morally-bankrupt company tries to weaponize a brilliant scientist’s revolutionary technology, he goes...