Life on the Line (2015)

Life on the Line traffics in piled-on, predictable melodrama, with only intermittent sparks.

This is one of those “based on true events” movies that give you the distinct feeling that the true events deserved better.

Director David Hackl’s Life on the Line is supposed to be a moving story about men working electrical lines. Viewers, however, might require a high-voltage shock just to endure it.

The country songs that play over the credits offer more arresting detail about life on the line than the film manages in 100 minutes.

Concerned with both physical and psychological hazards of the job, Life on the Line manufactures a pileup of looming disasters to which director David Hackl lends no cadence.