There is an overzealous sense of passion in the pilot seat of John Travolta\u2019s directorial debut, Propeller One-Way Night Coach. The hour-long period piece is filled with aviation trivia from the early 1960s, right down to the unwieldy title, which comes from the type of cheap flight that the film\u2019s main characters, Jeff (Clark Shotwell) and his mother Helen (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett), take to get across the country in a series of short flights on a propeller plane. While these details fill up the business class section, things like plot, characters, and aesthetics board dead last. Navigating a turbulent undercurrent of mommy issues, Propeller One-Way Night Coach ends up more of a bumpy ride than an all-ages tribute to soaring the skies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Based on Travolta\u2019s 1997 children\u2019s book, Propeller One-Way Night Coach follows plane-crazed eight-year-old Jeff on his maiden flight. Travolta uncorks all of the childlike wonder of finally experiencing something you\u2019ve only ever dreamed about, excitedly sharing the earnest love of something so esoteric, you can relate to few others. The actor serves as his film\u2019s narrator, reciting Jeff\u2019s inner observations about the experience from a child\u2019s perspective, immersing the viewer in the wonders of air travel<\/a> in the heyday of Pan Am and Trans World Airlines (TWA), the latter of which is almost exclusively the focus of the film.\u00a0<\/p>\n But then there\u2019s other commentary that sounds more grown-up, more like a reflection on the past from a therapist\u2019s chair. In his narration, Travolta includes some off-color remarks about Jeff\u2019s mom Helen\u2014about her appearance, her fondness for cocktails and hatred of accents, and her \u201csingle and ready to mingle\u201d attitude\u2014that\u2019s a bit judgmental, as if Jeff was frustrated on a Freudian level that he wasn\u2019t the center of her attention. Later, Jeff develops a crush on a stewardess named Doris played by Travolta\u2019s daughter, Ella Bleu Travolta, and later mentions in the epilogue that they marry after he grows up a little. It\u2019s a bit odd to criticize Helen so much while making Doris such an angel (and the future wife of his younger alter ego). While this mess is liable to fly over most kids\u2019 heads, there\u2019s not much else in Propeller One-Way Night Coach to entertain them unless they have a favorite plane model from the Jet Age.\u00a0<\/p>\n