I was awake for the film, asleep for the review. I started working on this yesterday, and I fell asleep while pressing the A button on the keyboard, I’m sure that would be an acceptable review. Everyone wants an A, especially a review that is nothing but the letter A. That’s like God level praise. Sadly, for John Travolta’s directorial debut, Propellor One way Night Coach, it isn’t an A.
I watched him do an interview at Cannes, and he seems like such a nice guy, and he’s so passionate about this project, that I think he just got too close. When you wrote the source material, the screenplay, and directed the film you financed using a slate of unknown actors your sister knows from Idaho, we’re in a whole new ballpark.
It isn’t that the story is bad, it is that it feels like an approximation of the human condition, as seen through an alien or artificial perspective. Travolta doesn’t know how to get what he needs or wants, and when it is literally all his, it really becomes a seeing the forst for the trees type thing. It’s a little like Francis Ford Coppola on Megalopolis, a film he spent decades trying to make before selling his assets and financing it himself. I get when you have an idea you think is epic, and no one else can touch it, but surround yourself with creatives who don’t just affirm you, they challenge you because they know what your’e capable of.
It’s based on a novella Travolta wrote and read to his kids, but I think this would bore children. The core demo here are baby boomers, who remember smoking on airplanes, or at the very least, the existence of TWA. I’m not here to poke at the actors, all of whom I’m sure were stoked to do this. Normally, they’d end up in an indie that gets lost on the festival circuit and winds up on Tubi. They just stumbled into a high profile directorial debut, picked up by Apple, and given a Cannes platform due to Travolta’s award. It’s like having your kid drafted out of high school into the NGL as a starter. The amount of scrutiny is much higher, but if we also take a step back, we should acknowledge that this rarely happens. It is rare that a 61 minute film gets this much attention. Just annoyingly long enough to not be considered a short (AMPAS defines a short as 40 minutes or less), but short enough people won’t feel like they got their feature worth. Thank God it is on streaming.
It didn’t really work for me, and reminded me of better warm and fuzzy nostalgic trips like The Wonder Years and My Dog Skip. It isn’t offensively bad, but I do think Travolta should have maybe let a few more voices chime in during production. It was so adorable listening to the child lead of this be flabbergasted by the existence of Travolta. he didn’t know who he was, was told he was a big deal, and obviously someone showed him Grese. I think the kid is maybe 10, and considering his output in the last 10 years, Travolta hasn’t done much to bring in kids who aren’t catching Bolt on Disney Plus.
This does have audio description, which does boost the production design of the period, trying to capture the heavy flight down memory lane. I know Travolta loves to fly, and I feel for him with all the loss he’s gone through, but in the kindest way possible, this is a no for me.
Travolta is too close to this project, which holds it back from truly soaring.
Rotten: 5.3/10
