Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for On The Line (2022)

Summary

  • Elvis's prank on Dylan backfired when Dylan was in on the joke all along in On the Line.
  • Dylan, the supposed intern, turns out to be a professional stuntman in a major twist.
  • The action thriller satirizes the age of misinformation and media manipulation.

While the 2022 action thriller On The Line’s ending is wild, the movie's major twist might annoy some viewers who expected a more serious and straightforward conclusion. On The Line follows Mel Gibson’s Elvis, a radio host with a penchant for dark practical jokes. After Elvis pranks his new intern, Dylan, he gets a disquieting call from a creepy guest. This guest claims to have Elvis’s family held hostage and begins psychologically torturing the host by putting him through a lengthy game of cat and mouse. Gibson’s antihero and his bumbling intern pretend to follow the caller’s instructions, but soon earn his ire.

The caller, Gary, reveals that he is getting revenge since Elvis’s thoughtless pranks led his girlfriend, Elvis’s former switchboard operator, to take her own life. Gary instructs Elvis to jump from the building’s roof, leading Dylan and Elvis to fake this feat. Discovering this deceit, Gary fires two shots over the phone, presumably killing Elvis’s family. When a devastated Elvis and Dylan return inside, Gary informs them that Elvis’s family isn't dead. Instead, they are somewhere in the building with bombs strapped to their chests. After a tense chase, Dylan and Elvis find them, but all is not as it seems.

Dylan Didn’t Really Die In On The Line’s Ending

Elvis’ prank on Dylan backfired when Dylan was in on the joke

Dylan and Elvis discover the hostages and an LAPD officer arrives on the scene. Gary tells Dylan that he will let Elvis’s family live if Dylan dons their bomb vests instead and the intern selflessly agrees to this. However, when he puts on the vest and Gary kills the officer, nothing happens. It turns out that the entire ordeal was a mean-spirited, absurdly elaborate prank planned and pulled off by Elvis himself. On The Line’s entire storyline was all a practical joke, something that Dylan can barely comprehend when it is revealed. Confused, Dylan falls down a stairway as he leaves.

Dylan dies instantly, breaking his neck on impact. A shaken Elvis quits his job on the spot and goes home, crushed by guilt. The next morning, he gets into a cab to turn himself in to the police. However, the driver is revealed to be his new intern. Dylan is alive and well since he was not an inexperienced intern at all, but rather a professional stuntman. In a wild twist, it turns out that everyone who was in on the prank that Elvis pulled on Dylan was secretly also planning an even bigger, more elaborate prank on Elvis. Elvis is thoroughly amused.

Elvis’s Prank Plan In On The Line Explained

Mel Gibson’s shock jock collaborated with Gary to fake the kidnapping

Mel Gibson as Elvis yells into the mic in a scene from On The Line.

Elvis’s plan requires a bit of untangling since On The Line’s central prank is so ambitious and immersive. The main twist is that Gary the kidnapper wasn’t a real criminal and Elvis never drove a co-worker to take their own life thanks to his tasteless pranks. Instead, Gary is a popular YouTube prankster who collaborated with Elvis, planning the prank as a live event that Elvis would broadcast to his listeners. Gary played the part of the kidnapper, inventing his vengeance-fueled backstory and hiring actors to play Elvis’s family over the phone. Meanwhile, Elvis played along to fool Dylan.

On The Line’s ending makes it clear that Dylan must have also been in cahoots with Gary. Although he didn’t give this away when the prank was revealed, Dylan, the supposed intern, secretly knew Gary, the LAPD officer, and Elvis’s family were all actors. After all, for Dylan’s prank to work, he needed to pretend that Elvis’s practical joke was a success. Thus, Dylan was presumably working with all of Elvis’s co-workers to make it seem like he had no idea the prank was happening. This worked, since Elvis was thoroughly convinced when a dazed Dylan seemingly couldn’t understand the prank.

Dylan's Stuntman Role Twist Explained

Dylan wasn’t really a witless intern but rather a professional stuntman

William Moseley's grinning Dylan stands in front of someone in On The Line 2022

Dylan’s real role is On The Line’s biggest twist since Gibson’s antihero never seems all that trustworthy throughout the entire movie. Although Elvis has moments of humanity, the frequent references to his inane pranks and even Gary saying that the host’s pranks caused his partner endless anguish imply that the character has a dark side. Mel Gibson’s recent movie roles have seen him lean into a darker, nastier version of his earlier bad-boy screen persona, so it is not all that shocking when Elvis’s plan is finally revealed to Dylan. In contrast, Dylan’s real role is a much bigger surprise.

On The Line treats Dylan as an audience insertion persona and viewers are encouraged to view him as little more than an avatar. While Elvis is unpredictable and erratic, Dylan is meek, mild-mannered, and calm until things escalate into substantial danger. Once the situation gets out of hand, Dylan is understandably confused and terrified. The fact that he doesn’t pull off any moments of bravado or heroism until he accepts the bomb vests makes it seem like he is a young, clueless intern and not a professional stuntman. Thus, On The Line’s final twist outdoes the movie’s earlier, more predictable revelation.

Did Elvis Learn Anything In On The Line’s Ending?

Gibson’s antihero ended up promising to prank his coworkers even worse

Mel Gibson speaks on the mic in On The Line.

In a moment of dark hilarity that is the movie’s strongest gag, On The Line’s protagonist learns less than nothing from his experience. Upon learning that the tragic death of his young co-worker was nothing but a joke, Elvis responds by warning his colleagues that his next prank will be even worse. The antihero seems darkly amused at the thought of concocting a scheme that will outdo the movie's nightmarish ordeal in a funny scene that proves Mel Gibson’s upcoming movies should continue exploring the actor’s darker side. This grim denouement is genuinely unexpected because Elvis so clearly needed a redemptive moment.

What On The Line’s Ending Really Means

The action thriller satirizes the age of misinformation

William Moseley's Dylan looking terrified in On The Line 2022

Beyond allowing Gibson to chew the scenery, On The Line has no obvious purpose. Its story, a nesting doll of increasingly absurd twists, almost willfully defies analysis. However, underneath the increasingly byzantine double crosses, On The Line could be read as a downbeat satire of the misinformation age. A cynical media personality collaborates with a new generation of content creators to create an elaborate, pointless lie, only to learn that he himself is the victim of an even more immersive prank. Through this lens, On The Line's story can be read as a condemnation of the broadcast media’s questionable veracity.