James Bulliard

There's almost no point in reviewing a movie like "On the Line" because its target audience -- N'Sync fans dizzy to see oh-so-dreamy Lance Bass play a lovelorn shy guy -- isn't likely to care how clumsy, lifeless and cliché-driven it is. They're probably not interested in Lance's acting ability, and they certainly don't care what somebody who isn't a 14-year-old girl has to say about said acting ability.

Apparently, director Eric Bross didn't care about lifelessness, clichés or Bass's Hallmark card-thin talents either, because this movie is on autopilot. An uninspired, lowest common denominator romance about a sheepish ad agency grunt (Bass) searching Chicago for a beautiful girl he clicked with during a commute on the El train, the film is one long "missed connections" personal ad come to life.

Bass plasters the city with flyers reading "Are you her?" and fields so many phone calls from lonely women that his posse of pals from central casting (the slob, the snob and the pervert) start scamming the rejects for dates. Implausibly, a newspaper runs a series of stories about this quest, which is more pathetic than it is romantic. Inexplicably, the female population of the windy city becomes enamoured with Bass through this story, and the girls in his office all start cooing at him when he walks in every morning. (All except that one tough-as-nails career gal who steals his idea for a Reebok campaign in a story-padding subplot.)

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