Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Crwthod A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

romanorum1 South of the border, during church services, an earthquake strikes. North of the border, patrol agent Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) arrests two illegals working below minimum wages at a sweatshop. These vignettes introduce to this movie about illegal immigration by Mexicans to the USA, and the corruption that goes along with it, from the Mexican coyotes, American lawmen, and Mexican hustlers. The border patrol cops work to keep out illegals, but businesses pay to keep them. In the beginning the movie focuses on illegal immigrants, but it morphs into an action movie (with little action) until the end. To please his extravagant wife Marcy (Valerie Perrine), Charlie transfers from his rundown trailer in Los Angeles to a desert duplex in El Paso, Texas, her hometown. To furnish her "dream house," Marcy loves to buy things (on the installment plan) that Charlie knows that the couple simply cannot afford: huge water bed, large sofa, pool in yard. She hosts expensive parties. Charlie's border patrol partner at work is Cat (Harvey Keitel), married to Savannah (Shannon Wilcox), Marcy's high school friend. They live on the other side of the duplex. Cat has offered Charlie a buy-in to his system of earning more cash. This involves allowing illegals inside the USA to do day jobs at nearby businesses and farms. The decent-minded Charlie vehemently turns down the offer at first, but his wife's constant spending changes his mind. Meanwhile Charlie becomes obsessed with helping young Mexican mom Maria (Elpidia Carrillo), who's new infant was stolen from her in a smuggling ring that sells babies for adoption. The compassionate Charlie wants to help Maria and ask for nothing in return. She winds up trapped working in the sleaziest bar you'll ever see and run by the slimiest of characters. Meanwhile Cat is not against an occasional murder. ("We take care of business.") These issues upset Charlie greatly: he decides to take a stand against corruption. The acting holds up well. To mention a few names, Nicholson is always good. But this feature is not like "Easy Rider," "Five Easy Pieces," "Chinatown," "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," or "The Shining." His performance this time is sufficiently subdued and brooding. Keitel is also a good actor; he plays devious characters very well. Warren Oates is effective in a small part as Border Patrol Chief "Red." Mike Gomez as Manuel plays a sufficiently dastardly, creepy snake. The Freddie Fender soundtrack helps. But the film suffers from any lack of excitement. The funniest line in the film emanates from a drunken woman: "You look like my husband. He'd f*** a woodpile if he thought there was a snake in it."

Rodrigo Amaro Dry and uninspired "The Border" escapes from being weak thankful to some good performances and some good moments. But it's hard, tiring and not engaging movie about an honest border cop (Jack Nicholson) dealing with a practically whole corrupt force who smuggles illegal Mexican immigrants, drugs and gets an awful lot of money with this. Charlie, Nicholson's character, only enters in the game to satisfy his compulsive and big spender wife, who wants to live in a dream by buying stuff. But Charlie also wants to help a Mexican girl (Elpidia Carillo) her younger brother and her son to accomplish their prosperity in this new land, trying to compensate his lack of good deeds now that he's part of a dangerous system that also involves dealers and mercenaries. Best thing was to make the bad cops as more likable folks than the blasé anti-hero. Probably because they were made as simple as possible, people to get ahead in a system that allows you to do that and they never threatened or treated Charlie differently after he turned down their offers, at first. It all changes when Charlie cannot look himself in the mirror disgusted with this situation and people start getting murdered. They are very seductive up to a certain point, and that made the movie more bearable, won't say enjoyable because it staggered frequently with some of its dramatic moments and relatively enjoyable action sequences. Its lack of purpose is upsetting just as much as the mixture of drama and thriller - only reaching memorable peaks with the climatic ending and when the baby is kidnapped. The privileged look given by foreign directors of privileged countries (in this case, the British Tony Richardson) is always one dimensional and clichéd, never trying to be more than just a romanticized copy of reality - see my review of "Crossing Over" as well. And there's so much more to be explored here instead of just giving Charlie investigating everything or seeing his wife living this costly dream of fun barbecues, water bed and stuff. We should be able to relate a little more with the immigrant characters, hear their voices and wishes, give more substance instead of poor folks who want to live a better life - which is true - running away (as sort of pointed out) from earthquakes. Despite its troubles, "The Border" offers a good performance from Nicholson and an outstanding Harvey Keitel as Charlie's "best buddy" who invites the good cop to a world of possibilities and illicit acts as well. At the end of day, you have something good from this film. 6/10

pc95 Over the last decades there have been quite a few movies about Mexican to United States Immigration and Border Patrolling. This one, entitled "The Border" is an early 80s era story directed by Tony Richardson. It focuses on a quasi corrupted border agent, played by Jack Nicholson. The direction and story is fairly linear, but not bad. Corruption is broadly painted across both sides of the border, and unfortunately it seems fairly plausible. Supporting cast members do a good job backing up Nicholson including Elpidia Carrilo, Warren Oates, and a young Harvey Keitel. I liked the grittiness of the settings and the way Nicholson's character was unhappy both at home and on the job. The movie had some fairly graphic and violent turns, even for the time. Title song seemed to fit well. Worthy of a watch. About a 7/10

DJAkin This is a decent movie about a border patrol guy played by Jack Nicholson who lives in El Paso with his wife who is really spoiled and the but are friend's with Harvey Keitel and his wife but the weird thing was how there was this one guy who was older and ran some kind of illegal operation with the "wetbacks" and in once scene where Jack Nicholson was supposed to have checked the back of a van for illegals, he did not and there were some illegals planted there to make it seem like Jack didn't check the van and what happened after that was Jack vomiting but that was not all because there was this other part where Jack Nichoson was getting really mad at his nagging wife as he was trying to bbq at a party so there is a food fight and Jack Nicholson pushes the bbq grill into the swimming pool that his wife bought behind his back and that was apparently something that Jack really hated!!