Movie Review: 'Slingshot' Starring Casey Affleck

Slingshot

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom

Written by R. Scott Adams, Nathan Parker

Starring Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, Emily Beecham, Tomer Capone

Release Date August 30th, 2024

Published September 3rd, 2024

Slingshot stars Casey Affleck as John, an astronaut who has earned the chance to travel to the farthest reaches of space. With his crewmates, Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne), and Nash (Tomer Capone), he’s traveling to Titan. It’s a dangerous multi-year mission that includes a maneuver around a distant planet called ‘The Slingshot’ that will either send the crew to Titan or doom them to a slow, agonizing death in deep space. Needless to say, this is a mission that requires focus and mental fortitude.

The crew will spend a long portion of this mission in hibernation. They will sleep their way to Titan under heavy sedation. Unfortunately, the sleep medications come with some potentially harsh side effects. One of those side effects is vivid hallucinations and John is certainly suffering from those. Before leaving for his mission, John met and fell in love with Zoe (Emily Beecham). The connection was so deep and intense that John might have considered giving up his mission to stay with her. Obviously that didn’t happen but it has led to him thinking that he sees Zoe on the ship and hears her voice in the halls.

It doesn’t help that John suffers a head injury early in the mission after a piece of space debris strikes the ship. The ship’s computer indicates that nothing bad has happened to the ship though John has seen the giant dent the debris left behind. The collision has terrified crewman Nash who urges the Captain to cancel the mission and head back to Earth. Captain Franks, the seemingly most rational and together of the crew, disagrees and the mission proceeds toward the slingshot with the lingering threat that the slowly coming apart Nash may try to sabotage the mission.

That’s the plot of Slingshot but what is the movie really about? What is director Mikael Hafstrom attempting to say in telling this story? My answer? Who the hell knows. Slingshot may have a point but it is deeply unclear. I’m not asking for the movie to bluntly spell out its purpose but Slingshot is so vague of purpose that it all feels empty, pointless and dreary. Combine that with a sleepy and listless performance by Casey Affleck in the lead role and you have a movie that is not much fun to endure. And that’s a shame because the conflicts between Affleck and Fishburne and between Affleck and Beecham have strong ideas behind them.

Emily Beecham is terrific in Slingshot. I am not familiar with Beecham’s other work but she shines in this role as an effortlessly intelligent and attractive woman who could make any man consider abandoning a lifelong ambition. That conflict, John falling in love with Zoe and being forced to choose between his lifelong desire to go to the farthest reaches of space and his desire to be with and build a life with Zoe has some real juice to it. But, since we know John chose space over love, what was the point of introducing the conflict? We see their relationship mostly through hallucinatory flashbacks.

Laurence Fishburne is also quite good as the only rational adult on the mission. Some plot points appear to want to parallel Fishburne’s Captain with Marlon Brando’s Col. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now and, indeed, Fishburne does appear to borrow some of Brando’s virtuous madness. The only issue with Fishburne’s performance in Slingshot is that he’s far more interesting than Casey Affleck who, as mentioned, is our lead character. At least Fishburne gets to show off his acting chops in an entertaining way. He also repeatedly sings the classic rock song "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by The Animals. Why? He really likes the song, I guess.

That song is a motif in Slingshot but it would require spoilers to fully unpack the possible meanings. I don't dislike Slingshot nearly enough to maliciously spoil it. Also, I am not sure that there is a deeper meaning to the use of this song as a recurring element of the movie. I can see how it is being used in a way that indicates meaning but, much like the rest of Slingshot, it's open to so much interpretation that "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" could mean whatever you want it to mean.

Beyond that, Slingshot lingers on Casey Affleck’s dreary, bleary-eyed performance as he navigates his confusion. Is he crazy? Is anything he sees real? The movie toys with reality so much that you really can’t grab on to anything. That’s an interesting idea but it’s not well executed in Slingshot. The film toys with the objective reality of the story so much that you can’t continue to care, it just becomes frustratingly vague. Hafrstom and his team can’t commit to any one idea of what is happening and you are left with a mélange of a movie, a sloppy mess of bungled plots and seemingly no central idea.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and more than 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider subscribing to my writing on Vocal. If you’d like to support my writing, you can do so by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one time tip. Thanks!