Slingshot 2024

Slingshot-2024
Slingshot 2024

In space, no one can hear you yawn. One is sorely tempted to pick the numerous movies that more or less singlehandedly pushed Håfström’s disastrous “Slingshot,” but it seems like a crime to mention these poor souls in relation to this particular disaster. Almost defiantly unappealing in a way that strains credulity, “Slingshot” is wrecked toward the end for various reasons and merely operates as a flimsy representation of life during the COVID lockdown for most of its length. It is a film that seems to disdain its protagonists.

John (Casey Affleck really seems to be going through the motions in this film) is an astronaut on board the Odyssey 1, a vessel that is supposed to slingshot (no prize for guessing the title) around Jupiter and then head towards Titan which is one of Saturn’s moons. The vessel is relatively small and only has three crew members John along with Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne) and Nash (Tomer Capone from “The Boys”). The crew hibernates during large portions of the journey in order to complete it, having to awaken every three months in order to check if the journey is still on course. This, quite predictably, results in a feeling of dislocation both in time and in space.

As John experiences increased mental strain causing his paranoid delusions and hallucinations, he begins imagining the phantom of his girlfriend Zoe (Emily Beecham) aboard the ship one about whom Casey mostly recalls a mustache in some dream sequence flashbacks that tend to ramble on. It speaks volumes of the lethargy of this film that everyone seems to possess only a ‘mustache’ as the physical change. It reeks of sloppy styling and editing as even the amount of stubbles is identical to the now troubled Film character of John. Whilst kissing, she scratches John’s love’s cheek just as John Knox Graves goes too far with both left and right shall not steal. During their sharing of courtesies, we notice a few clashes, including one that occurs once he sets out to boldly go where no man has gone.

Recently, aboard the Odyssey, there is a lot going on in the heads of John and Nash. They start to lose their cool recalling the ship hull sailing through the slingshot. Paired with muted lives and minimal characters men talk in fragments choosing together the best method and time. With so many characters on the show and such poor relevance who then is able to film them? This role seems somewhat painful to watch Affleck utterly miss the space challenge be an astronaut, or let alone an actor who appeared like a deer in headlights on the wrong location. It is utterly painful to watch someone this gifted and seasoned show up like that on screen. He appears practically on the verge of burning out.

Fishburne is captivating. He effortlessly makes his way through the film doing what needs to be done and simply walks away from the chaos. He has been a reliable collaborator with any director given the conditions.

Unfortunately, not me. Especially writers R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker, who do not even have the bravery of their own narrative, leading their tale of solitude and madness into a series of ridiculous twists in the last act. And then they conclude with one more twist which is so ambiguous. Stand back from it for a minute and you see that it is a film with no narrative structure. It does not have any concern with its characters or the outcomes of their lives. Why do you even have to?

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