‘Slingshot’ (2024) Review – A Sci-Fi Film That Misses The Mark

One of the most famous clichés in movies is watching an attractive male figure suffer mental anguish, and even torment, over the loss of the woman he loves. The new Bleeker Street Media film Slingshot doesn’t so much build on that premise as it does steal it from far better movies, such as Solaris, Moon, and, to a lesser extent, the highly undervalued Brad Pitt film Ad Astra.

Then there’s the subject of loneliness in the post (and still current) modern era of COVID-19, set against the great void of space—a theme that Slingshot struggles to engage with fully. The script also fails to explore what Dostoevsky said happens to men when you stick them alone in small rooms. Instead, this Casey Affleck-led bottleneck picture employs storytelling tools to explore loneliness in a way that doesn’t move the story forward.

Instead, it tears it apart.

Director Mikael Håfström, best known for The Rite with Anthony Hopkins and the adaptation of Stephen King’s short story 1408, tells the story of John (Academy Award winner Casey Affleck), who volunteers for the adventure of a lifetime: a mission to Titan, a moon orbiting Saturn that is rich in methane. The mission aims to collect this methane, bring it back to Earth, and test its potential as an energy source.

Joining John on the mission are Nash (The Boys’ Tomer Capone) and Captain Franks, who leads the expedition. They travel aboard Odyssey 1, a spacecraft designed for the multi-year mission. To survive the journey, the crew members undergo self-imposed, drug-induced sleep cycles. Eventually, John and Nash begin to question their own reality. Every 90 days, they awaken to maintain the ship and ensure the mission’s success.

The fact that this movie may put you to sleep is a total coincidence.

What is most shocking is that the script comes from Nathan Parker (Underground Railroad), a gifted writer known for the aforementioned Sam Rockwell gem, Moon. Along with R. Scott Adams (Donner Pass), the script builds toward a double twist that should have worked. Frankly, if handled correctly, that ending—like Parker’s famous reveal in Duncan Jones’s film—should have provided a satisfying conclusion.

This suggests that Håfström severely mishandled the film’s script. The filmmaker has nearly a dozen weak movies in his filmography. This makes you wonder how many studio executives he has gotten canned over the decades. Slingshot desperately needs some tension and a healthy dose of verve. However, Håfström presents the film in such a catatonic state that he puts the audience in the same drug-induced stupor as its characters.

This may be the first film to put the viewer through the visceral reaction of lethargy.

Despite all that, the performances from Affleck, Fishburne, and Nash are good. The latter two remain within their lanes of one-note characterizations: one stoically menacing and the other exuding exasperated anxiety. The script utilizes flashbacks during Affleck’s hibernation in an attempt to create a torment over John’s girlfriend (Emily Beecham) that can be felt. However, these flashbacks share the same lack of energy and mundaneness.

This brings us back to Slingshot’s reveal, which Håfström fumbles due to excessive emphasis on ambiguity and an obvious explanation that seems to be waiting for a congratulatory “That a boy” (think of Entourage when Vince looks around at the crowd at Cannes after the end of Medellín, searching for one of those multi-minute standing ovations). Someone who can better handle the material deserves to remake Håfström’s film.

That someone would be Duncan Jones, but I digress.

Sling Shot is playing exclusively in theaters via Bleeker Street Media.