Borderline: Delivering Decent Throwback Thrills (Early Review)

Borderline is set in 1990s Los Angeles and follows Sofia (Weaving) a famous pop star whose home is broken into by an obsessive fan named Duerson (Nicholson) who delusively believes they are getting married and manipulates their surroundings to create a real life wedding atmosphere. With her life on the line, it is up to her and her loyal bodyguard Bell (Dane) to escape Duerson’s grip before they tie the knot. A film with a lot of promise behind it coming in, from it’s 1990’s thriller Esque plot, to the talent both in front of and behind the camera, it might not live up to its potential, but it is still a decent watch with plenty of redeeming qualities.

An entertaining darkly comedic thriller in its own right, Borderline boasts a good amount of style, suspense and a decent level of tension throughout. The throwback premise along with the 1990s setting proved to be a perfect match and for a film primarily set in one location, it is consistently engaging and never boring. Meanwhile, for a film presumably made without the highest of budgets, the filmmakers made the most of what budget they had and that effort definitely shows. A large reason why it works as well as it does is the terrific cast who all go for it here. Despite Sofia being massively underdeveloped as a character, Weaving is great as usual. On the other hand, Nicholson easily gives the best performance in the film, channeling his father’s intense energy to maximum effect. While Jimmie Fails as Rhodes and Alba Baptista as Penny both excel, the biggest standout and the film’s true scene stealer is Dane as Bell thanks to the most development and Bell being the only character with a fully rounded arc.

However where the film truly falls short is its characters, story and tone. Outside of Dane’s Bell, the characters just lack depth, leaving the rest as essentially blank slates with little to no characterization. Without defined intentions or motivations, it becomes difficult to connect with them on an emotional level. Outside of the likeability of the actors playing said characters, the film offers little reason to care about the characters themselves. While it can’t be accused of playing it safe, it does have a fair share of intense moments but, that being said, it also could have taken this premise a lot further as the final product is likely to have audiences wondering “was that really it?” by the end. A little all over the place tonally, the film could never quite find the right balance between all the genres it attempts to meld together across its narrative as it seemed uncommitted to any.

At the end of the day, in spite of its flaws, Borderline is still a decent watch worth checking out for its great cast and short running time. While not be the homerun it could have been, writer/director Jimmy Warden delivers a solid feature debut that gets more right than wrong.

still courtesy of Magnet Releasing

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/