By Robert Scucci
| Published
Want to know what it’s like to be a lineman? Well, the most superficial primer you can find is currently streaming on Tubi, and it’s called Life on the Line. Set in Texas, and featuring John Travolta using his best (read: not that great) Southern accent, Life on the Line, which is apparently based on true events, takes a look at the rough tumblers who put their … lives on the line.
Unfortunately, the title’s double entendre is probably the most clever thing about this film that’s bloated with unnecessary B-plots, and jam-packed with every single disaster movie trope you could shove into 97 minutes.
The Main Story
Life on the Line first introduces us to Beau Ginner (John Travolta), an old school, by-the-books badass lineman with a heart of gold who works one of the most dangerous jobs in the country. Haunted by a past tragedy on the jobsite that killed his brother Danny (Ty Olsson) 15 years prior, and the car accident that Danny’s wife Maggie had while driving to the hospital, Beau not only stayed with the profession, but also looks after their daughter, Bailey (Kate Bosworth), who was left without parents after that fateful day.
Having to do a massive retrofit of the entire power grid in a very short amount of time before storm season in Life on the Line, Beau and his crew race the clock to make sure safety standards are met at the highest level as they risk their lives while working under a tremendous amount of pressure.
The Side Stories
If Life on the Line told a simple story about blue-collar workers working through a seemingly impossible and dangerous task, it would be a solid movie because it would be able to explore all of the colorful personalities behind the life-risking profession, but instead we get too many B plots that don’t leave any room for meaningful character development.
The first, and arguably the most important B plot in Life on the Line involves Devon Sawa’s Ducan, Bailey’s ex-boyfriend who takes up the profession after learning that she’s leaving for college. Bailey has other plans, as she reveals to Duncan that she’s pregnant with his child, which is upsetting to Beau who wants to see her become something more than a lineman’s wife. Naturally this causes conflict between Duncan and Beau, who often get into small spats on the work site over this developing family dynamic.
The two above beats are all that Life on the Line needs, but two more side stories are introduced that certainly make the world seem a little bigger in the film, but are totally unnecessary.
First, we have Ron (Matt Bellefleur), another one of Bailey’s ex-boyfriends, who shows affection by intimidating his love interest. Second, we’re introduced to the new couple who moves in across the street from Beau and Bailey, Carline (Julie Benz) and Eugene (Ryan Robbins), the latter of which being a traumatized war veteran who started working for the power company. Bailey befriends Carline, who’s clearly sleeping around when Eugene is at work because the war “changed him,” which causes frequent run-ins with Ron whenever they go out.
Less Plotting, More Jobbing
One aspect of Beau’s character that I really wish we saw more of in Life on the Line is whole tough-but-fair attitude, and how his overprotective behavior toward Bailey is a contradiction to this attitude in regard to her relationship with Duncan. Several conversations with his crew reveal that he’s a total badass, but we never really see anything that proves that point. After a hard day’s work, when everybody goes out for a round of drinks, the best thing we get is Beau diffusing a fight with a rowdy patron at the bar, which ends as quickly as it started when Beau says that option A means shaking hands and moving on with their lives, and that the rowdy patron doesn’t want to know what option B is.
The adversarial relationship that Beau and Duncan have over Bailey’s future is the real conflict in Life on the Line, and every other side plot is forced to come to a head in the third act in order for these relationships to pay off, which they don’t because the storyboard has to go to a very specific place that now relies on a resolution to these side stories.
Streaming Life on the Line
While I admire the intent behind Life on the Line because it was meant to glorify one of the hardest jobs in the country while paying respect to the many men who have lost their lives to it, one reviewer on Rotten Tomatoes summed it up perfectly with, “The is one of those ‘based on true events’ movies that give you the distinct feeling that the true events deserved better.”
What could have been a heartwarming and heartbreaking story about a blue-collar man trying to do right by his found family plays out like a bloated mess of ancillary characters who don’t drive the story forward until the screenplay forces them to. To give credit where it’s due, the actual disaster sequences are stunning to look at when you consider Life on the Line’s estimated $12 million budget, but they’re too few and far between to be effective given how much unnecessary exposition is required to tell its story.
As of this writing, you can stream Life on the Line for free on Tubi.
