Review: On the Line

Posted by: Jeremy Maron  •  October 25, 2001 @ 9:31pm

Filed under: Reviews

You know those movies where you go in expecting the worst, but it turns out to be a masterpiece, and you enjoy it even more because you thought it would be bad? That is truly a great experience. Anyways, onto the review for On the Line, the new romantic comedy that catapults *NSync's Lance Bass and Joey Fatone onto the big screen.

On the Line is the story of Kevin Gibbons (Lance Bass), a guy who always chokes whenever he meets the perfect girl. One day while riding the bus he meets Abbey (Emmanuelle Chriqui) a beautiful girl with whom he shares every interest from Al Green to U.S. Presidents. Surprisingly enough, he chokes and forgets to ask her name and number before they go their separate ways. The rest of the film consists Kevin and his buddies (fronted by fellow *NSyncer Joey Fatone) trying to find her by putting up adds all around Chicago.

Just because you're a pop star doesn't mean you can act... at least convincingly. It didn't seem like Bass made any attempt to become his character. I'm not saying he shouldn't have tried movies, but really, no one (no guy, no girl) is as nice as this guy is supposed to be. Even when he's hanging with his male friends he's still speaky clean. Joey Fatone on the other hand does a good job of portraying an overly stereotypical male, complete with the beer drinking and flatuating. Underneath, of course, he only has his best friend's interest in mind. To round out Kevin's friendship group is the "styler" and the "preppie". No one can honestly tell me four guys like this would be "best" friends in real life.

The best character by far is Kevin's boss, Higgins (Dave Foley), whose "money makes the world go round" attitude is the best explanation I can give for why I dropped out of management for film studies. Emmanuelle Chirqui's character is nothing outstanding, but at least she looks comfortable, which can't be said for Bass.

There are some funny bar scenes in the movie and a funny (but not in a good way) rock star character played by Richie Sambora. In fact, there were moments when I caught myself thinking, "This isn't too bad." Then the last 45 minutes happened.

There's nothing special in On the Line. Watch the trailer and you've basically seen the movie. You notice this even more when you see the trailer after the movie. I do have confindence that one day a romantic comedy will come along and blow the industry away. But for now, we'll just have to keep waiting.

Tags: On the Line, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Eric Bross, Dave Foley, Richie Sambora, romantic comedy, NSync

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