Voltage Pictures has premiered a new trailer for high-wire thriller Life on the Line, starring John Travolta as a blue-collar worker risking life and limb to restore downed power lines across the country.
Described as one the most dangerous occupations out there, the subject matter wouldn’t look out of place in a straight-to-TV documentary, though director David Hackl has moulded a story around the employment regardless. It’s a dated one, too, with Travolta on board to play Beau, a grizzled veteran who reluctantly takes newcomer Devon Sawa under his wing.
In his time dealing with power outages and unforgiving storms, Beau has witnessed his fair share of tragedies. Plus, the fact that he acts as a surrogate father to Kate Bosworth’s character, a potential love interest to Sawa’s maverick, evokes a romantic subplot not dissimilar to Michael Bay’s Armageddon – only with decidedly less Aerosmith. Sharon Stone, Gil Bellows, Julie Benz and Ryan Robbins complete the cast.
With a trailer that screams generic from the first frame, we struggle to see how Life on the Line will carve out an audience to call its own. Nevertheless, here’s the thriller’s official logline:
Life on the Line is an exhilarating action drama, which follows the lives of a crew of eccentric and courageous Texan power line workers who do the extremely dangerous work of fixing the crumbling electrical grid. John Travolta stars as ‘Beau’, a salt of the earth man who blames himself for his brother’s death and raises Bailey, his orphaned niece (Kate Bosworth). His worlds collide when Bailey’s handsome lover joins his linemen crew on the eve of a massive and deadly storm that threatens to rip their lives apart.
Appropriately, Voltage Pictures is the studio distributing Life on the Line, and it’s pegged to release at some point later in 2016. Just don’t expect it to feature in the awards circuit by the year’s end.