John Travolta's new film is a dud. It shows why great actors can be bad directors
There is something almost unbearably poignant about watching a clip reel of John Travolta's greatest screen moments before sitting down to review his directorial debut. Tony Manero. Danny Zuko. Vincent Vega. The man has spent five decades being magnetic, dangerous, funny, and devastatingly human — often all at once. Which makes it all the more painful to report that Propeller One-Way Night Coach, the 61-minute Apple Original he has spent years nurturing into existence, is a well-meaning muddle. A film so devoid of the very spark that made its creator legendary.
The film — based on a children's book Travolta wrote in 1997 — follows a young aviation enthusiast named Jeff and his single mother as they take a multi-stop propeller flight cross-country to Hollywood. It is set in the golden age of air travel, all polished shoes and glamorous stewardesses, and it wears its nostalgia like a warm cardigan. The problem is that a warm cardigan is not a film.
"A meta reading of Propeller is more interesting than the film itself — tragically hampered by a distinct lack of ambition."
A Love Letter That Never Reaches Its Destination
Travolta has admitted openly that this is personal — the first film he has described as "the most personal thing I've ever done." His love of aviation is well documented; he is a licensed pilot who owns multiple aircraft. And so Jeff's wide-eyed enchantment with airport announcements, in-flight meals, and the aesthetic theater of 1960s air travel is clearly autobiographical. The sincerity is not in question. The craft, unfortunately, is.
The screenplay, also written by Travolta, narrates over the action with such relentless over-explaining that one begins to wonder if he trusts either his audience or his own images to carry the story. The voiceover does not complement the visuals — it smothers them. Great directors understand that cinema is a language of pictures and silence. Here, every moment of potential wonder is immediately explained away.
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