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The horizon line is An awkward encounter between the My Life tale and the old McGyver action series, you know, the one that could build a nuclear reactor with two paper clips and a piece of gum.
The plot is easy to understand:
The two handsome Sara and Jackson, and an old pilot, get on a plane to go from Mauritius to a wedding party on a distant island in the sea. But enough! The pilot dies of a heart attack, so who will direct the plane? Storm ahead, sharks below.
Scary worse?
N / A.
I am in shock. Yes actually. Not because the movie is lousy but because it’s probably Mikael Marcimain who directed it.
The Laser Man, Call Girl, Gentlemen and the upcoming true crime series The Hunt for a Murderer – all testify that Mikael Marcimain is one of our premier film and television storytellers.
And then this. It’s like watching Zlatan score an own goal.
Well, it’s probably a loaf job, but still … You can’t find a single trace of Marcimain on the Horizon Line. Maybe he sold his name to the production? Let someone else do the work.
It’s a cliche calling an action movie a cliché, but this goes beyond that. This is not even fun, just boring. Which is something of a milestone in an action genre that at least tends to offer an easy-to-buy yet entertaining thrill.
When the goal is known, we all understand that Sara and Jackson will succeed, the path must be so exhilarating that it activates the reptilian brain, but this is too talkative and uncomfortable for that to happen.
Gets fixed early that Sara (Allison Williams from Girls) is an enterprising woman full of integrity, while Jackson (the stone pillar Alexander Dreymond from The Last Kingdom) is a muscular fool. It is Sara who does not want to settle down (yes, there is one very fragile love story here too), she’s the best. Throughout. This is underlined so many times that it feels like an overcompensatory act by two screenwriters wanting to slap the contemporary on the head by reversing classic gender roles.
It becomes purely fatherly when Sara also turns out to be strong like Longstocking. When Jackson, probably 100-fronted and muscular, hangs from the plane, she manages to lift him up again with just one hand.
“You are amazing!” must exclaim when she has managed to solve another problem with her exploring mind.
Yeah jisses, that dialogue makes a user guide look spiritual. The pair try in vain to express their excitement with IQ-defying phrases like “I hope the gas is enough until we hit the ground” and “Be careful not to fall.”
This is the first film in an investment that the Swedish company SF Studios has made to create and market international genre films based in Sweden. The idea is good: keeping savvy filmmakers at home in the Nordic countries, but Horizon Line doesn’t directly add spice …
