Category Archives: Archived Movies

Archived Movies

ON THE LINE

Producers: Romuald Boulanger, Marc Frydman and Robert Ogden Barnum   Director: Romuald Boulanger   Screenplay: Romuald Boulanger   Cast: Mel Gibson, William Moseley, Alia Seror-O’Neill, Paul Spera, Nadia Farès, Enrique Arce, Kevin Dillon, Yoli Fuller, Ravin J. Ganatra, John Robinson, Avant Strangel, Yann Bean, Nancy Tate, Carole Weyers, Robbie Nock and Romy Pointet   Distributor: Saban Films

Grade: D+

Not long ago, Mel Gibson and Kevin Dillon co-starred in “Hot Seat,” a nonsensical thriller about an ex-hacker turned menial IT guy who’s forced use his old skills to transfer stolen money to the account of a villain who’s put a bomb under his chair to ensure his compliance; Dillon was the trapped guy and Gibson the bomb squad veteran who tried to defuse the explosive. 

In “On the Line,” Gibson assumes the role of victim, playing Elvis Cooney, a crass, insulting all-night talk radio host, prone to cruel practical jokes, who gets a call on air from a crazed man who threatens to kill Cooney’s kidnapped wife Olivia (Nancy Tate) and daughter Adria (Romy Pointet)—and blow up the skyscraper in which the studio is housed—unless the shock jock does exactly what he’s told, which might just include killing himself.  Dillon has a relatively minor role here as Justin, the guy who hosts the prime-time slot he thinks Elvis craves.

The claustrophobic feel of “Hot Seat” is also a main feature of Romuald Boulanger’s picture (which, though set in the Los Angeles, was made in France, with a polyglot cast and a swarm of varying accents).  We first see Clooney at home with his loving family, showering affection on little Adria.  But by the time he parks his Mustang at the studio he’s turned into Mr. Gruff, treating the security attendant Bob (Ravin J. Ganatra) with disdain, even as he sends a nutbag named Noah (John Robinson), who arrives claiming to be Jesus and threatening to kill them both, packing by telling him TV would be a better vehicle for his message.

Making his way to the broadcast booth upstairs, Elvis has a run in with Justin and an argument with the station manager (Nadia Farès) over declining ratings before getting down to work with his producer Mary (Alia Seror-O’Neill) and new engineer Dylan (William Moseley), fielding calls.  It’s not long before Gary (Paul Spera) is on the line with his threats, which he says are righteous vengeance for an affair Elvis had with his one-time girlfriend, who committed suicide after he broke it off.

The scenario turns into a convoluted cat-and-mouse game when Clooney learns that Gary and the hostages are in the building, which Gary has wired with explosives after killing Bob.  He and Dylan are soon stalking the hallways, trying to locate his family and save the day.  Police are introduced—a patrolman whose intervention might ruin their chances, a bomb squad expert whose efforts to help have the reverse effect—as well as explosive vests and a hand-held detonator.  You get the gist.

Thus far the movie has generated some modest tension despite the goofiness of the initial premise and the increasingly risible complications Boulanger adds to it.  But just as the plot reaches its apparent climax, it upends all that has gone before with not one but two twists so totally ludicrous that they provoke more anger than satisfaction.  The movie wants to become “The Usual Suspects” and fails miserably.

It’s not Gibson’s fault: he huffs and puffs through his role with an intensity he manages in about half the pictures he makes now, though he can never make Clooney credible.  The rest of the cast goes through the motions, with only Moseley standing out—except for Dillon, who as usual nowadays, stands out for all the wrong reasons.  The technical side of things—production design (Emmanuel Réveillière), cinematography (Xavier Castro), and editing (Pierre-Marie Croquet)—is adequate enough, even if darkness dominates the cramped images and things could move along more crisply.  Clément Perin’s score strives to add excitement, but can’t overcome the sporadic directorial flabbiness.

Most viewers might be willing to shrug off “On the Line” as a mere mediocrity until the final twenty minutes.  After them, though, they might feel like throwing things at the screen. There are a couple of points where the movie makes a couple of jokes at its own expense. A character remarks, for example, that what they’re going through would make a great movie–and another says that it needs a rewrite. Elsewhere, Elvis asks “What kind of D-grade movie BS is this?” In retrospect these seem less like jokes than valid observations.  

Archived Movies

CALL JANE

Producers: Robbie Brenner, David Wulf, Kevin McKeon, Lee Broda, Claude Amadeo and Michael D’Alto   Director: Phyllis Nagy   Screenplay: Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi   Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards, John Magaro, Geoffrey Cantor, Aida Turturro, Bianca D’Ambrosio, Bruce MacVittie, John Rothman, Rebecca Henderson, Maia Scalia, Sean King and Alison Jaye   Distributor: Roadside Attractions

Grade: C+

Given that it deals with an underground organization of women trying to arrange abortions for women in pre-Roe vs. Wade America, “Call Jane” often manifests a surprisingly upbeat tone.  The camaraderie of the activists is sometimes riven by disagreement—at one point the lone black woman (Wunmi Mosaku) challenges the bases on which those to be helped are selected—but the sense of solidarity among the members is palpable, and there’s an air of exuberance to their efforts except at its darkest moments.  And there is no consideration of the moral and ethical issues surrounding abortion—the approach is unambiguously, even proscriptively, pro-choice. Moreover the ending—with the announcement of the Roe decision—is positively triumphant, which, given the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs decision, now carries an ironic subtext.

That’s one of the narrative problems with the film, which curiously skirts the very real dangers the group faced.  There are a few mentions of the need to maintain good relations with “the mob,” for example, but no explanation beyond that, and the one instance in which a policeman (John Magaro) enters the scene turns out to be much less menacing than initially suggested.  Indeed, one might think that it represents a rather cheap attempt to engender a bit of suspense.

An even more serious drawback is the decision to strip down what was a collaborative action to something more singular, and to do in a fictional way.  At the center of Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi‘s screenplay is Joy (Elizabeth Banks), the wife of lawyer Will (Chris Messina).  They have a teen daughter, Charlotte (Grace Edwards), and are now looking forward to the birth of their second child.  Sadly, after she has a fainting spell, Joy undergoes a series of tests and her physician (Geoffrey Cantor) informs the couple that she has a serious heart condition that will endanger her life if she continues the pregnancy.  He suggests a therapeutic abortion, but that procedure requires the approval of the hospital board, and the all-male directors, led by two stuffily dismissive types (Bruce MacVittie and John Rothman), summarily decline the request.

Joy decides to seek out an unauthorized abortion entirely on her own, but rejects going through with it at places that look shabby and unsafe.  Eventually a street notice takes her to the Janes, where Virginia (Sigourney Weaver, as rough and tough as she is prim and controlled in the recent “The Good House”) presides over an operation that, rather improbably, depends on only one practitioner, a capable but somewhat sleazy fellow named Dean (Cory Michael Smith).  Initially apprehensive, Joy finally goes through with the operation, masking it at home as a miscarriage.

Not long afterward Joy receives a call from Virginia, asking her to drive a young woman to the organization’s apartment for the procedure.  Joy tries to decline, but feels a sense of obligation, and soon she’s become a full member of the collective, especially good at helping to calm patients down so that Dean can complete their procedures.  She eventually becomes convinced she can perform Dean’s function herself, after investigating his background and what the process entails.  That’s only the start of the activists becoming even more directly involved as a group.

Meanwhile Joy’s domestic life changes.  Will is frustrated by her long absences—supposedly to art classes, though there’s no evidence of her work in them—and is tempted to fill the time with their widowed neighbor Lana (Kate Mara, in a reserved, enigmatic performance).  Nor is Charlotte unaware that something’s off.  Eventually the visit from that cop brings everything into the open.

But rather than continuing the story from that point, “Call Jane” abruptly shifts to 1973, with Virginia, Joy and their colleagues celebrating the Roe decision.  Virginia’s speech mentions raids and Will’s help in mounting legal defenses, but none of that is dramatized.  Instead the film just ends with a victory lap that, in view of recent setbacks, has proven to be premature.

That does, however, add a topical twist to the movie, since it’s apparent that the work of the Janes might now have to be resumed in a different context, and in a different way. There are gaps one wishes had been filled—Aida Turturro, for instance, plays a nun who’s a member of the Janes, but she remains a peripheral figure whose habit gets more consideration than her motives, and the Lana subplot feels tacked on for soapy effect, and then is promptly forgotten—but the acting is good overall, with Banks convincingly tremulous as an ordinary housewife caught up in a situation she could never have imagined being thrust into, and gaining confidence and certainty along the way, and Weaver making Virginia a steely figure who’s nonetheless willing to consider criticism of her leadership.  (One wishes her background had been given some filling-out).  Messina hasn’t much to work with, but struggles to flesh out the shallow conception of Will, and Smith gives Dean a creepiness appropriate to his shady doings; among the other “Janes,” Mosaku stands out for her intensity.

Production designer Jona Tochet and costumer Julie Weiss have worked hard to provide convincing period detail (the story starts in 1968, as an introductory scene referring to the demonstrations at the Democratic Convention of that year establishes); the clothes fit the period, as do the cars scrupulously chosen for the sequences on the road).  And while the Hartford, Connecticut locations might not completely persuade us of late sixties Chicago, cinematographer Greta Zozula, employing a gritty, often dark visual palette, makes them fairly plausible.   Isabella Summers’ score is spare, and except for the missing pieces in the script, Peter McNulty’s editing is reasonably smooth.

Those who would like a more historically complete—and expansive—treatment of the Jane Collective are directed to the HBO documentary “The Janes,” which of course takes a much more sober approach than Nagy’s film.  It makes a useful complement—some would say corrective—and is available on HBO Max.  And, of course, anyone wanting a politically and philosophically “balanced” treatment of the continuing debate over abortion should look elsewhere.  But on its own, admittedly limited terms, “Call Jane” fills its goal of celebrating the work of a group of women committed to fighting for a right denied them in the sixties—and would undoubtedly feel they must now fight for again.