Skybound (2017)

Directed by: Alex Tavakoli | 78 minutes | action, thriller | Actors: Scarlett Byrne, Gavin Stenhouse, Rick Cosnett, Morten Suurballe, Tyler Fayose, Carla Carolina Pimentel, Jerry Coyle, Brigitte Knott-Wolf, Sami Omar, Lars Walther, Christopher Hawkins, Alena Wolf

A lot of movies are being made. Of course not every film can excel, that would be too much to ask. But what did director Alex Tavakolis intend with the vehicle ‘Skybound’? Tavakolis, an architect and civil engineer, also wrote the ‘story’. So you can literally blame him for everything. Because, what was probably intended as an action thriller: five people trapped in a plane with limited fuel and an unknown disaster that has played out on the ground, culminates in a laughable, cringe-inducing C-comedy.

The ‘story’ doesn’t mean much. Five friends fly a private jet from New York to Los Angeles: two slumber brothers (Kyle and Matt), their mutual love interest Lisa and the couple Odin and Roxy. Once ‘skybound’, they quickly lose radio contact with air traffic control and the radar no longer shows any other aircraft. On top of all this, they find a stowaway on board, Erik, the leader of a cult preaching the end of the world. He forces the crew to stay in the air. But, how long can they stay in the air with a limited amount of fuel?

To save fuel, the friends pull off the craziest antics. For example, they demolish the entire interior and throw it out of the plane (!) to have to carry less weight. And while they’re at it: they conceive the idea of ​​dumping one of the two engines, because that will of course also save fuel. So Matt steps onto the wing of the plane with an ax (made of steel!) to get this job done without further ado. Chop a working engine away in mid-air, with the door open? Why not, because at that moment everything has already happened that you can question. Credibility zero point zero.

The acting performance in ‘Skybound’? If you can call it acting, because you are actually constantly watching with vicarious shame. There is no chemistry between the main protagonists. They seem to have just been plucked from the street and spoon up their texts as if they were reading them from an autocue. ‘Skybound’ cost about $6 million to make. Sensible people could have done so much more with that. One of the taglines of the film is ‘What if suddenly the ground was gone?’ The counter question should be: On what ground(s) was this film made? A complete waste of money, equipment, effort and ‘talent’. Truly a disaster film….