On the Line (2001 film)

Kevin is performing with his band at a high school graduation party. When he sees an attractive girl, his bandmates try to get him to sing to her and ask her out. He becomes nervous, and envisions himself nude in front of everyone, and faints. Seven years later, Kevin is working in advertising. He makes a pitch for Reebok that is rejected, though the pitch is later used in the meeting by his "partner" Jackie, who presents it as hers. As he takes the train home from work, Kevin meets Abbey, with whom he finds he has much in common, such as their mutual interest in the Chicago Cubs and Al Green.

Kevin tries to find Abbey by making posters imploring Abbey to contact him, and placing them all over town. He goes out with a few random women who respond, none of whom are Abbey. The local newspaper finds out about his search and sets up an interview. The reporter, Brady Frances, is an old classmate who harbors ill will toward Kevin, on account of a girl in high school who rejected Brady for Kevin. When Brady's article is published, Kevin gets hundreds of calls, which leads to his dateless roommates — aspiring musician Rod, slacker Eric, and art aficionado Randy — suggesting they date all the callers to help. Kevin rejects this idea, but a miscommunication leads Eric to believe that Kevin has approved it. A follow-up article is published in which Brady portrays Kevin as a failure, which garners even more calls from women. Brady is further irritated when his girlfriend Julie, who is bothered by his grudge against Kevin, takes Kevin's side.

Meanwhile, Abbey is having problems with her boyfriend of three years, whom she was visiting when she met Kevin. Her boyfriend buys tickets to an Al Green concert, but then cancels at the last minute. Kevin is also at the concert, but they never see each other, despite several close calls. As Kevin's roommates date the women who responded to the articles in order to find Abbey, they encounter Julie. When she tells Brady that Kevin's friends are answering the calls and dating the respondents, Brady reports this as a scam in a follow-up article. As a result, Reebok declines to work with Kevin, and he is taken off the project. When Kevin subsequently sees Abbey waiting for a train, he tries to get her attention but she only sees him after she boards the train, and the doors close before he can get to her. Kevin also learns that Abbey responded to his public search for her, and when he learns that Eric went out on a date with her, he punches Eric.

After Kevin's best friend at the agency, Nathan, suffers a heart attack, Kevin visits him at a rehab facility, where Nathan tells him the story of both meeting his wife at a Chicago Cubs game, and catching a home run from Cubs legend Ernie Banks the same day, and how the two events are tied together. He gives Kevin the baseball and tells him to try to find Abbey again.

Jackie apologizes to Kevin, and places him in charge of the campaign's billboards. He uses the billboards to publicly ask Abbey to meet him at the train station at a specific day and time, which garners the interest of the media, who wait with him at the scheduled time. Kevin and Abbey are reunited at the station, much to the delight of the crowd at the station, to the television viewers at home, and to his roommates watching this unfold in a bar. In addition, Randy meets a woman who enjoys art as he does, Julie dumps Brady for Rod, who is offered a recording contract by a record label after rock star Mick Silver listens to a demo tape of his that Kevin sent, and Brady is given an advice column in the Living section of the Chicago Times.

The idea for doing the film came together when NSYNC’s talks of starring in a feature film as a group in the vein of A Hard Day’s Night stalled in late 2000.[4][5] The film was Lance Bass’s first film through his production company A Happy Place.[4] Bass initially intended to only produce and not star, but decided to act also when the group’s management gave the band a month and a half of downtime before the start of recording for their album Celebrity.[6]

Filming began in mid-March of 2001 with a reported budget of $10 million.[7][2][4] The film’s original title was "On the L".[4] The film was primarily shot in Toronto, Ontario, while establishing shots were done in Chicago.[2][8] Midway through the shoot, NSYNC began recording again, and to accommodate for both the album and the film, Bass and bandmate Joey Fatone continued filming in Toronto during the week and traveled to Orlando on weekends to work with the band.[8] Filming wrapped in late April of 2001.[4][2]

During the film's closing credits, NSYNC members Justin Timberlake and Chris Kirkpatrick appear as comical hair and makeup artists in mock "behind the scenes" footage, doing hair and makeup for Bass, Fatone and Chriqui.[9] JC Chasez had a cameo as a bartender but his scene was cut.[10]

The film's soundtrack featured songs by teen pop artists Mandy Moore and BBMak, along with previously unreleased tracks by NSYNC and Britney Spears.[11]

Miramax marketed the film heavily towards NSYNC's teen fans, with trailers for the film being shown during the band’s summer PopOdyssey tour.[12][13] It was released in theaters on October 26, 2001. The film was a box-office flop, grossing only $4.3 million domestically.[1]

Bass attributed the film’s poor box office performance to its release date, which happened a month after the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001. In his 2007 autobiography, Bass wrote, "Halfway through the press junket, the president declared war and that was it — our film was finished. We had wanted to entertain America, to give back some good feelings, but once the country went to war, there was no way our film was going to be on anyone’s top-priority list."[14]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 19% based on 70 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The site's critics consensus states: "An inept attempt at a romantic comedy aimed at 'NSYNC fans."[15]

Roger Ebert said the film was "...an agonizingly creaky movie that laboriously plods through a plot so contrived that the only thing real about it is its length."[16] Of the few positive reviews, Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the film "a pleasant wisp of a romantic comedy" and wrote, "If On the Line, directed by Eric Bross from a screenplay by Eric Aronson and Paul Stanton, is a mere trifle, at least it isn't as condescending or transparently synthetic as most niche-marketed daydreams for the high-school and junior-high set. Its mood is bubbly, its music sweetly perky, and Mr. Bass's Kevin is blandly appealing in a passive way."[17]

In 2021, B.L. Panther of The Spool commented how the film, in retrospect, becomes "fascinating" when examined through a queer lens, in light of Bass later coming out as gay. Panther noted that the only openly gay character in the film is "a gasping gay stereotype", while the closing credits scene of Timberlake and Kirkpatrick serves to poke fun at conceptions of homosexuality.[18] Panther wrote, "We can’t help but cringe to see [Bass] have to react to these caricatures of the identity he was forced to hide for so long and, as he reminds us in his autobiography, is actively hiding on screen."[18] He added, "Even the things that make On the Line a critically shit movie are enhanced by a queer reading. With incredibly kitsch practical visuals and a narrative logic that defies linearity, it breaks with the common structure and tone of other romcoms of its time. At times, it feels like scenes are missing, perhaps censored by a hand desperately trying to keep Kevin from jumping the tracks into queerness...That’s what makes On the Line interesting to watch now, 20 years later. It’s not because it’s secretly great, but because we can see the alternative life underneath its train tracks."[18]

• On the Line at IMDb
• On the Line at AllMovie
• On the Line at Box Office Mojo
• On the Line at Rotten Tomatoes