On The Line

If you’re between the ages of 10 and 14 and you’re a girl, you’ll love seeing ‘NSYNC cute-boy, James Lance Bass, star as the limpid lover trying desperately to make up for being a dweeb in Eric Bross’s big screen-fanzine. Kevin is a quagmired young advertising executive whose team leader, Tamala Jones (The Brothers) in her signature cleavage-showing business suit, steals his cool ideas for the Rebok campaign. Poor guy, he can’t climb up the corporate ladder and he can’t get a girl to look at him twice. But one day after being bushwhacked by corporate politics yet again, he’s riding the El train home, and he meets the girl of his dreams (Emannuelle Criqui, Snow Day). She’s gorgeous, of course, with long black hair that she twists up sometimes, and she has this totally cool direct gaze that guys must swoon for. But she’s more than just a fox. She makes paper planes, can recite the entire list of U.S. Presidents all the way up to Bush, and get this, she loves Al Green, the famous R&B singer, just as Kevin does. They exit at the same train stop and lust chastely after one another, but Kevin, being a dweeb, lets her walk away without getting her phone number or her name. Duh!! Kevin’s buddies are smarter than he is, particularly his fellow ‘NSYNC member, Joey Fatone, who actually plays a musician in the movie and steals the whole show with his gravel-rock sound. They convince him that the only way Kevin is going to get his life on the line is to get the girl he found on the train line. So Kevin goes to work to find her. He plasters posters all over town: “Are You the Girl on the El Train? Call me!” and his lovesick search makes him a media star. Everyone in Chicago, it seems, is reliving their own romantic fantasies through Kevin’s search. All these dweeby girls claim to be the girl he’s looking for, but they’re not. They’re funny as hell, but they’re not his true love on the train. His buddies set up a production board to answer all the calls. Of course, most of his buddies are dweebs, too, so when Abby, — that’s her name we finally find out — actually does call, she ends up being bamboozled by one of the least appealing buddies. Uh oh, Trouble in Paradise. But our hero perseveres and Abby finally forgives him and they clinch in a full-mouth kiss at the train station, with all of the Windy City’s eager media watching and recording it for romantic posterity. Brainless, harmless, witless, sexless, and boring for anyone who’s old enough to vote, but cute.