Stream It or Skip It: ‘On the Line’ on Netflix, With Mel Gibson Racing to Save His Family (Again)

On the Line, now streaming on Netflix, plays on Mel Gibson’s dodgy real-life reputation by casting him as a cantankerous shock-jock whose nightly after-hours radio show is interrupted by a caller with a deadly grievance. 

ON THE LINE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Elvis Cooney (Mel Gibson) has a name for radio – and a retrograde attitude to match. Though he’s first seen tenderly playing with his daughter, potentially setting up a contrast between the satisfied off-mic family man and the cranky, old-school role he plays up for his show, Elvis seems to embrace on his on-air persona in real life, making sour comments to coworkers, complaining about being asked to use social media, and generally telling it like it is (also known as being an intemperate jerk). But his sensibility comes back to haunt him when an apparent ex-coworker named Gary phones into his radio show with serious threats against Elvis’s wife and child. Elvis, alongside his inexperienced staffer Dylan (William Moseley) and his loyal right-hand woman Mary (Alia Seror O’Neill), must race to save them as Gary keeps the whole cat-and-mouse game on the air. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Gibson using media to bark threats at someone who has kidnapped his child brings to remind Ransom, one of his signature ’90s hits, though the movie unfolding largely in real time in a single building may bring to mind Hitchcock thrillers like Rope or Rear Window (or, more appropriately, clunky decades-later imitators like Nick of Time). Putting the bad guy on the other end of a taunting phone call might also bring to mind most Hollywood thrillers made between 1992 and 2007. Naming the movie it most resembles, however, would constitute a massive spoiler.

Performance Worth Watching: The movie doesn’t give you much choice about who to watch at any given moment: This is the Mel Show. Gibson brings his trademark weathered intensity; unfortunately, his alternating propensities for self-torture and self-aggrandizement are present and accounted for as well.  

Memorable Dialogue: At one point, the bad guy compares himself to Joaquin Phoenix in Joker, and even quotes his helpless laughing as he gasps “I have a condition.” So, yes, the most memorable line in this movie is from another movie. 

Sex and Skin: Part of the movie’s plot hinges on a sexual affair, but that all stays off screen.

Our Take: There’s something immediately tense and mysterious about an anonymous voice at the other end of a phone call. That’s something cleverly exploited by countless Hollywood thrillers, as well as plenty of smaller-scale productions (like The Listener, an upcoming Steve Buscemi-directed drama with Tessa Thompson). So it’s remarkable how writer-director Romuald Boulanger is able to over-amp that tension before dissipating it entirely over the course of On the Line, a thriller set in the exciting, cutting-edge world of terrestrial radio. Though Elvis Cooney (Mel Gibson) seems like the type of shock-jock who’d leave mainstream radio in favor of a sweetheart deal on satellite or Spotify, he still runs his show on a Los Angeles-area radio station, seemingly unconcerned about plateauing ratings. It’s actually difficult to get a bead on his popularity, because the movie wants to have it both ways: Early in the film, Elvis is called out for his unwillingness to engage with modern audiences via social media, while he also seems to be treated like radio royalty by a loyal cohort of listeners. (The conversation is made all the more nonsensical by the edict that he should “stop pushing the envelope,” when that’s obviously the reason he attracts whatever listeners he has; the movie is so muddled about his motivations that it’s genuinely difficult to puzzle out whether his midnight timeslot is supposed to be the dregs, or a badge of honor.)

In any event, Elvis has enough sway to ruin someone’s life – or so claims a caller named Gary, who calls the show in order to report that he’s holding Elvis’s wife and child hostage as revenge for a misdeed in the host’s past. What Gary actually wants from Elvis remains elusive, and not because the movie is withholding various puzzle pieces until just the right moment for them to snap together. Mostly, Gary just sends Elvis and his de facto assistant Dylan running around the radio station building; he keeps hinting he may use his hostages to actually get Elvis to do something trickier or more painful, but for a substantial stretch of the movie, Elvis plays a literal game of hide-and-seek, often involving absurd threats about perfectly wired explosives and perfectly timed murders. A shocking amount of the movie feels like an exercise in killing time, and Boulanger’s listless staging ensures it won’t pass in a flash.

“What kind of B-grade movie bullshit is this?” Elvis says at one point, attempting to lampshade the litany of contrivances at hand. The movie does eventually provide an answer, for this question and some of its most seemingly out-there plot turns, but the denouement still features a tell: It’s so insufferably drawn-out that even as the movie wraps up, it underlines (among other things) the punishing lumpiness of its pacing. The actual answer to Elvis’s question is that On the Line has a long way to go before it reaches B-grade level. 

Our Call: A vengeful caller sending a frazzled shock-jock on an overnight odyssey isn’t a bad idea. But On the Line is the kind of movie that thinks it can win the game with a Hail Mary pass in the last ten minutes. Avoid the runaround and SKIP IT.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

Stream On the Line on Netflix