On the Line

Mel Gibson heads the cast of this dreary thriller as Elvis Cooney, an egotistical radio host whose late-night show is disrupted by a caller claiming to have taken the shock-jock's wife and daughter hostage. Elvis and his studio staff are forced to carry out a series of tasks while also trying to establish the identity and motive of the caller. If writer/director Romuald Boulanger's intention is to comment on the outrageous behaviour and callousness of media figures operating in a grey moral area, he fails spectacularly thanks to a screenplay littered with ludicrous yet predictable plot twists and cringe-inducing dialogue. The acting is across-the-board woeful, with Gibson all-but sleepwalking through his role, and the preposterous denouement serves only to compound viewers' suspicions that the whole affair has been a waste of their time.