Directed by Robert Kirbyson
Written by Robert Kirbyson and Tara Stone
Starring John Billingsley, Nicole Gale Anderson, and Kunal Sharma
Runtime: 87 Min.

by Miguel Alejandro Marquez, Staff Writer

I first need to address my connection to Redline. My hometown is Frisco, Texas. Redline was filmed in Escondido, California. Frisco is best known for housing the façade of the Dallas mansion. (See my past review for Hitchhiker’s Guide for more context) A real hidden gem in the Dallas, Fort Worth metroplex. Escondido is not my home. What’s in Escondido, California you may ask? The place that literally translates as ‘hidden’? John Paul the Great Catholic University. The 19th best college in the west according to U.S News and World Report. 

John Paul the Great is a private catholic college that prides itself as an institution that is “impacting culture for Christ.” 

They most certainly did not impact culture for Christ with this movie.  

I have been attending John Paul the Great Catholic University since 2019. Redline was the first piece of media that introduced me to the school. It wasn’t a good first impression. Frankly, the film is a disaster, but figurately and metaphorically. The film represented everything that people hate about Hollywood: it was cheap, lazy, and atrociously, insultingly, boring. 

What is this literal train wreck about? Well, first and foremost, the project began as a “real world experience” for film students at the university. A way to both put the school on the map, as well as be a teaching experience for its student. From what I heard from those who worked on it, this was a big deal. Most of the professors worked as either producers, cameramen, or something of the like. Kids would skip class to get more experience on set. A student even wrote the screenplay, originally envisioning on making a World War II flick, but after deliberation with the staff, they turned it into a terror threat onboard a train. 

So what did they produce? A Hallmark quality action flick.

The film follows Tori (Played by Nicole Gale Anderson) as she is thrown into a fight for her life and lives of her fellow passengers, when a bomb goes off in a Los Angeles subway. The group of survivors realize that there is a second bomb ticking, and that the perpetrator is still alive, and among them. They have only a few short hours until the second bomb goes off.

Great way to set things up right? It’s the textbook example of how to create suspense. All Hitchcock-y; with its use of a literal ticking clock. No. It’s hard to make something compelling on a budget of less than 200,000 dollars. The only people that I can think of making something that engaging for that little is Darren Aronofsky with Pi and Shane Carruth with Primer.

Both men made compelling, cerebral dramas for significantly less. I don’t want to be too mean to the co-writer of Redline, Tara Stone, as this was her first time at screenwriting, but this is just bad. 

Even though the film was made for basically nothing, and was basically made in the backstage of my school, it does have an impressive cast, Nicole Gale Anderson (of Jonas Brothers fame), as stated before, and John Billingsly (from 2012).

But this doesn’t save it from the production value of the film. To the reader who may or may not make films in the future, if you have the choice of telling a story, any type of story, but especially if its big-concept, and you’re not properly prepared to making it competently, DO NOT MAKE IT. This film was screwed the minute that it was conceived. You first need to be competent before you can be fantastic.  

Before I came to the university, I wrote this review on my IMDB account when I was nineteen: 

“This movie, given the time, effort and coordination by talented individuals would have come across as less wanna-be blockbuster and more of a suspenseful thriller. Sadly, the bland and pedestrian efforts made by John-Paul the Great University staff and Alumni came across as a juvenile rendition of what one thinks of a big budget blockbuster. The inept direction and cinematography didn't help the picture and only added to the faults found throughout this facade. Two out of ten stars.”

Three months later, I was sitting in class, being given lectures about how to pick up a camera by the people who made Redline. Nice people, but I was always having this travesty in the back of my mind whenever I talked to them.

The project, and what it represented, became a horror story that scared me of the possibility of mediocrity in my projects and the projects of my peers. I was afraid that the perceived culture of John Paul the Great and the films that it modeled itself on, would rub off on me. I felt that I would be sucked into the vortex of incompetency. I doubted ever coming to the university, But, after spending some time with the people and the culture of the school, these notions disappeared.

I still hold the same views as my younger self. The film tries too hard at being a film that it is not. The sleeve to the film’s DVD is misleading. It isn’t a thrill ride, it’s a slow, droning plot with very little substance. The film is littered in cringe inducing dialogue, bland cinematography, a boring story that think’s its suspenseful, and holds itself to too much esteem. One of the worst faults that the film has is that has a protagonist that’s a complex as a cardboard cutout. To be honest, she wasn’t really even a character, she was an avatar that the audience is supposed to see themselves in. 

Redline is a film that tries to be great, but doesn’t know what makes a film great. 

John Paul the Great university is making movies again, with one having a release date for summer 2022. Hopefully, they will learn from there mistakes, and will make something that is of value. They should aim for competently mediocre rather than incompetently muddled. Who knows how its going to turn out? I, myself, might work on it, as I’m currently a student, and might aid in its production. Who knows?

No matter what happens, I will be giving an honest review of it, and will post it here, on MovieJawn.com.