Horizon Line - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Horizon Line



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


​

Movie
Survival movies are always a pet love of mine. Films like The Shallows (great shark movie by the way), All is Lost, Cast Away and other films of that ilk movies I can watch and rewatch a dozen times over. There’s something thrilling about people overcoming great odds and push themselves past their known limits to make it out of the harrowing clutches of nature. However, not all of them hit home runs like the ones mentioned before. Horizon Line falls into that category as it drones on with a horribly boring first act, and a 2nd and 3rd act, that while thrilling, is privy to some painful acting that sets the story back a notch or two.

Sara (Allison Williams) breaks up with her boyfriend Jackson (Alexander Dreymon) in a bar at the beginning of the film, leaving without even saying goodbye. A year later she is out in the tropics for a friend’s wedding only to run into him again at said same wedding’s party. Passion ignites once more, and the two end up sleeping together and missing the ferry over to the island where the ceremony is about to happen. The only thing left to do is catch a ride from a little old charter pilot named Wyman (Keith David). The trip is a bet tense as the couple experiences the awkwardness of having unintentionally rebounded the night before, but said tension is only the least of their problems. Wyman experiences a heart attack mid flight, nearly killing them all as he collapses over the flight column.

Luckily Wyman had taught Sara some rudimentary flying skills a couple of years back and the young woman is able to pull them out of the listless nose dive they were in. But the problem is, She really doesn’t know how to fly that well, and during the nose dive an oxygen tank had smashed up many of the dials and controls, including the compass and autopilot. Now the two are stuck in a plane that’s running out of fuel (and leaking) with no devices to get them to land, and only their tenacity and ingenuity to keep them from being lost at sea.

The first act of the movie is one of the most painfully boring sequences I’ve seen in ages. The first 30 minutes simply drag on with unneeded romantic exposition. Sara and Alexander’s interactions are fine if you put it in a 10 minute opening scene, but dragging it out for over 30 minutes while the audience hems and haws at whether to turn the movie off is a big mistake. Once the heart attack and stranding in the air happens things dramatically change course for the better. The movie gets to be nail biting in suspenseful at times, but there is a downside. Said downside comes in the bad acting and predictability of the film. You can pretty much pinpoint when and where certain suspenseful beats are going to drop in the story, and the two leads feel like they’re much more suited to a DTV film than a decent Hollywood attempt.

The movie itself isn’t a bad flick, and the 2nd and 3rd act really do save it from the drudgery of having to slog through the first 30 minutes. That being said, the weak acting and predictability hamstring it a bit. Nothing happens that isn’t expected, and the typical happy ending is right on cue. I did enjoy the movie for what it was, but that doesn’t mean that it was nowhere near the best of the dramatic survival movies of the 21st century, let alone the last few years.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, bloody injury images, suggestive material/partial nudity, smoking and brief drug use




Video:

The 2.39:1 framed AVC image isn’t anything overly remarkable for today’s day and age, but it provides a very stable and pleasing image for the most part. The opening act takes place at night with lots of dimly lit tropical beaches lit only with the light of a flame. This creates a rather yellowed and murky environment and is ok, but nothing special. Things brighten up and shine through much more clearly when the couple wake up the next morning and get on the plane. That yellowish tinge is still there, but the visual clarity is much sharper, as is the detail levels. It’s sometimes a bit soft, but Horizon Line toes the line between looking great much of the time, to suffering from murky blacks and some crushing here and there. The shots looking down on the ocean look absolutely stunning, but the second a darker scene hits (even if it’s inside the cockpit of the plane) things don’t look as shiny and clear.








Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track for the film is good, but never really THAT good. The problems in the track aren’t MASSIVE, but they are noticeable and rather awkward. The first is that the track never really feels balanced. There’s some strong surround activity when the plane does it’s nose dives, and there’s plenty of chaos when Alexander is out trying to fix the gas leak, but it’s a bit TOO chaotic. Fronts and surrounds never feel balanced or prioritized, with one overwhelming the other at any given time. Dialog is usually clean and clear, but naturally it dips a good bit when someone’s screaming into the wind on the wing of the plane. The second problem is that the mix is just “flat”. There’s not a lot of umph to the mix whatsoever, leaving even the big action pieces feeling thin and dulled. It’s a decent mix, but with how action packed and kinetically charged the film’s 2nd and 3rd act is, the 5.1 mix is a bit of a disappointment.






Extras:

• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

Horizon Line is a solid rental thriller. It’s got enough thrills and tension to keep the viewer engaged (if they can get past the first act), and the payoff near the end is rather good. There’s a few loose ends that feel very compressed and rushed in the final act, but overall it makes for a reasonably fun popcorn flick. Not something I would go out and rush to purchase off the bat, but a good rental. Audio is a bit underwhelming though, and combined with the weak extras (a few deleted scenes) and good video, it’s definitely in rental category.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Allison Williams, Alexander Dreymon, Keith David, Peal Mackie
Directed by: Mikael Marcimain
Written by: Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 92 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: February 16th 2021

Recommendation: Solid Rental

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I will check it out once available on amazon prime/netflix.