A vengeful caller sending a frazzled shock-jock on an overnight odyssey isn’t a bad idea. But On the Line is the kind of movie that thinks it can win the game with a Hail Mary pass in the last ten minutes.

| Mar 26, 2024

The initial excitement dissipates...

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 27, 2023

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.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 23, 2023

A few snappy one-liners courtesy of a confident lead sadly don’t make up for, well, everything else.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Feb 23, 2023

Not a perfect movie by any means but the more I thought about it the more I liked it.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 1, 2022

This is a really good Mel Gibson film.

| Nov 30, 2022

Gibson tries to capture that same manic energy here as the dark and edgy man-pushed-to-the-edge [Lethal Weapon's Martin Riggs] and does a good job of it - perhaps that was the attraction for him to this role.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 23, 2022

Any tension is undermined by the progressively incoherent plot twists. As for the dialogue, a dial tone would be better.

| Nov 18, 2022

As a thriller it’s remarkably unthrilling and the big payoff might just have you throwing your popcorn at the screen. Terrible. Just terrible.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 18, 2022

[Mel Gibson's] curmudgeonly persona has hardened to a point that leaves limited room to modulate, which is a problem when we’re meant to believe Elvis is living through the worst night of his life, rather than just another Tuesday.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Nov 17, 2022

As much as I dislike Gibson, he's not the reason the film smells like a bomb.

| Original Score: C- | Nov 15, 2022

Using the idea of a radio show to get across much of its action, this low-budget thriller might have worked had it not made several missteps that will leave viewers feeling frustrated and annoyed.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 15, 2022

There are a few interesting twists that are reminiscent of early Fincher. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 15, 2022

… feels like a protracted exercise in trolling the audience.

| Original Score: 10/20 | Nov 14, 2022

A poorly executed “thriller” that takes what could have been a slickly designed premise (not unlike such locational thrillers as Panic Room or Buried) and undoes any of its potential with laughable dialogue and unconvincing performances

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Nov 10, 2022

Most viewers might be willing to shrug off “On the Line” as a mere mediocrity until the final twenty minutes. After them, though, they might feel like throwing things at the screen.

| Original Score: D+ | Nov 8, 2022

Mel Gibson commits to the Phone Booth-like intensity the film believes it's delivering, but when it shifts into find-the-killer-in-the-big-building and a whole WTF climax that should have any viewer asking why they bothered with this full-length exercise.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Nov 8, 2022

On the Line could have been an entertaining thriller. It had the basic elements and premise to weave a heart-pounding narrative. Instead, we get an avalanche of stupidity. A barrage of bewildering last-minute reveals crashes with a thud.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Nov 8, 2022

Is “On the Line” going to resuscitate Gibson’s waning career? Probably not. Will it change the minds of his many detractors? No. It will, however, offer further proof that Gibson loves to work and, on occasion, recapture the spirit of his glory days

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2022

“On the Line” can’t quite shake the nagging problem of its utterly preposterous scenario.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 4, 2022