Life on the Line

Besides the fact that as a movie, it was barely okish, I didn't realize that was Sharon Stone so I'll either give her kudos on the makeup job, or not blame her for hiding behind it, and knocking off the paycheck work. I don't even blame Travolta, he actually gave a sincere performance, given what he had to work with. The real issue here was in the writing, direction and edit. I just didn't buy any of it. The bar swilling, fist fighting, ol' boys approach to the film was overdone to the max. I don't need to be told a real linemen life (or any profession) is not actually like that, so why lie to me?

What I did appreciate was the lineman commenting here on the inaccuracies of the line work being done in the film. Like most, I know nothing about the details of their work, but I knew ... I just knew as I was watching, that Hollywood had it wrong here, and made it as sensational as they possibly could. A whole cities power supply resting on one switch? Do ya think I'm an idiot? And apparently it wouldn't have worked like that anyway says a lineman.

When will movie makers realize that its not wrong to actually portray someones job correctly, make sure they get the details right and let go of the need to push beyond reality to the point of reckless? The problem is I don't lose trust in the actors, I lose trust in the system that simply cant understand what I really want in a movie.

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.

This started as an interesting looking movie, based on a real story. An aging power line is being replaced accross an entire state in the South of US and we follow a company of lines men working on the line, We see an uncle played by Ttavolta, bringing up his adopted niece into a young woman. There are hugs and kissed between the uncle and his niece. Then later in the movie there are more hugs and kisses. Feels like the South!

The small town life is cliche ridden, with tough guys saddlin up for blue collar work in the day and gathering at bars in the evening for booze and fight.

There are some decent buildup later in the movie, but just as things get a bit exciting, cheesy dialog scenes meses up with the progress of the story.

The most impressive thing in this movie is watching rugged John Travolta, or Beloved Uncle Beau or Bub or Bubba actually climbing up a giant pole!

And jokes aside, the acting of Bubba lifts the movie a lot. The rest of the actors felt a little under par. They should have used Sharon Stone better in this movie too. The cross cutting in the movie where there is a bit action really brings the movie down.

So besides Unca Bubba, this movie turned out not so good as it could have been. What would have been a missed opportunity here is showing more footage from high rise power line poles to show the sctual hazards of this LINE OF WORK. Instead we get hugs and kissed from Unca BUBBA.

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.

This film tells the story of a foreman of an electricity company in the United States, who is diligent and careful with his job of supervising a group of linesman. The power grid is under threat when a massive storm strikes.

Seeing that this film has John Travolta and went straight to video in some countries, I had low expectations. It actually turned out to be way better than I thought. The story follows him and his niece, who experiences romantic troubles on the small town, where most people seem to work for the same electricity company. The story is engaging and draws me into their world, especially Kate Bosworth's character. I liked the ending too, and I didn't realise that there is an association to help the people who died while servicing power grids. I think this film raises awareness on the grave and try under-recognised dangers of working with the power grid. These workers deserve more appreciation and recognition for their risky job.