MOVIE REVIEW OF ”HORIZON LINE”

Daredevil movies teeming with stunts galore often warn spectators never to imitate their derring-do. For example, “The Fast and Furious” franchise slaps this cautionary credo on its films. This isn’t the case with Swedish director Mikael Marcimain’s aerial disaster epic “Horizon Line” (*** OUT OF ****), starring Allison Williams, Alexander Dreymon, and Keith David, which puts its protagonists through a harrowing, 92-minute, PG-13 rated wringer.

Filmed on the Indian Ocean island Republic of Mauritius, this scenic travelogue tale seamlessly inserts our carefree millennial protagonists into some hair-raising shenanigans which clearly required movie magic and stunt work.

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The scenes with our heroine clinging desperately atop a wing while in-flight and pouring fuel into a wing tank were probably lensed in a studio and laden afterward with CGI. Allison Williams must have been harnessed to a wing mock-up with a huge wind machine blasting her hair. Surely, no insurance company would have let her perform that stunt for real.

Nevertheless, the filmmakers have done a splendid job of selling it as genuine. Meantime, neither Marcimain nor “10 Cloverfield Lane” scribes Josh Campbell & Matthew Stuecken give our heroine and hero a break after their pilot dies from a heart attack and their plane plunges toward the briny blue. Since neither knows how to fly and their instruments are kaput, they find themselves on borrowed time as their fuel tanks run dry.

Despite its obvious low-budget look, Marcimain has knocked out the bottom to make it look like a big-studio release. The breathtaking aerial photography and the fairytale appearance of Mauritius and the Indian Ocean will make you yearn for that vacation you may have put on hold for the COVID pandemic. Three-time Emmy award-winning actor David Keith is the only cast member you may recognize, but nobody gives a bad performance, and the woebegone couple will win your sympathy.

“Horizon Line” unfolds as a millennial romance between a female advertising specialist and a male diving instructor. They have touched each other’s hearts, but she decides to break off their affair, so she can resume her life as a branding advertising strategist in foggy old London, England. Sara Johnson (Allison Williams of “Get Out”) has been loafing around Mauritius too long and delaying her inevitable departure.

Hating goodbyes, she waits until Jackson Davisen (Alexander Dreymon of “Blood Ransom”) excuses himself from the bar where they’ve been drinking and leaves him without so much as a fare thee well. Naturally, Jackson isn’t happy with Sara’s rude departure.

About a year later, Sara returns to Mauritius and surprises Jackson. She is supposed to serve as a maid of honor for one of her native girlfriends at her wedding. Sara and Jackson don’t exactly waltz into each other’s arms. Nevertheless, they rekindle a spark or two. Williams and Dreymon generate believable charisma as a couple who are still fond enough of each other to let bygones be bygones and resume where they left off.

They plan to attend the wedding separately, but she has to pick up some specially brewed ‘rocket fuel’ rum for the reception and make it to the ferry on time to embark on the trip. Predictably, she awakens too late after a night with Jackson to reach the ferry. Improvising, she scrambles off to catch a charter pilot, Freddy Wyman (Keith David of “21 Bridges”), who is flying another guest to the wedding.

Sara loads up her rocket fuel rum, hugs Freddy for taking her, and is surprised to see that Jackson is the other passenger. The more these two try to run from each other, the more they wind up back together.

During the flight, Freddy asks Sara to sit with him up front. He gave Sara flying lessons long ago, but she has forgotten everything. Now, Freddy wants to refresh her memory. Imagine Sara and Jackson’s shock when Freddy keels over dead from a heart attack. He slams headlong into the instrument panel with enough impact to smash it up.

Sara musters every ounce of strength to haul back on the yoke before the plane spirals into the ocean. Naturally, all those midair rollercoaster maneuvers deplete their fuel more than they know. Moreover, their autopilot malfunctions, and their radio crackles with static. Worse, they don’t know which direction they are flying until Jackson rigs up a makeshift compass. When they do establish momentary radio contact, they’re advised to fly into a massive storm rather than around it! The scant seconds Sara spends in that Armageddon of jagged lightning bolts convinces her to climb above it.

Unfortunately, Sara ascends too high, and they suffer from anoxia–lack of oxygen. Plus, climbing that far aloft drains even more of their fuel. If things weren’t haywire enough, they discover a leak in their fuel line of their single propeller driven engine. Courageously, Jackson lashes himself to the fuselage and clambers out beneath the wing to repair the leak.

A piece of engine cowling whips past him, narrowly missing his head as he loosens it, and whirls off into the sky like a frisbee. Miraculously, Jackson seals the leak. However, when he reenters the cabin, he breaks his forearm. Sara bandages it, but the farther they fly, the farther they seem to veer off course. Alas, the fuel tanks are virtually empty when they decide to substitute the ethanol ‘rocket fuel’ rum for fuel.

Stalwart soul that she is, Sara puts on her metaphorical big girl britches and scales the top of the slippery fuselage in flight while Jackson relays one bottle of rum at a time through the pilot’s window. Although the first bottle slips through her fingers, Sara manages to empty the rest into the wing tank.

What sets “Horizon Line” apart from the usual airborne balderdash is the never-ending obstacles with which our heroine and hero must contend, and Sara’s fearless alacrity to solve their problems. Altogether, not only is “Horizon Line” an empowered feminist fable for the fairer sex, but it is also flat-out, far-fetched fun!

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