Borderline (2002)
Psychiatrist Dr. Lila Colleti is divorcing her husband and is devastated when he wins custody of their two little girls, whom he gets largely because Lila's job, being a psychiatrist for the criminally insane at the local prison, is a potentially dangerous one that forces her to keep long, erratic hours. When one of Lila's patients, Ed Baikman, is released into a half-way house, he decides under the delusional influence of his psychosis to help her out by murdering her ex-husband and his girlfriend, and then threatening to tell the cops they'd planned it together when she refuses to become romantically involved with him. Though Lila's lover, police detective Macy Kobacek, stands by her loyally, Baikman does such an ingenious job of implicating Lila in the crime that even Macy begins to have his doubts about Lila's innocence
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The Worst Film Ever
Beautiful, moving film.
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.
A thriller is supposed to thrill, among other things. But the strongest emotions that "Borderline" manages to build in the viewer are confusion and an odd feeling. The odd feeling mainly comes with where the movie was shot. Although it's made clear that the story is taking place in California, you don't need to watch the closing credits to know that the movie was shot in a foreign country (South Africa, to be exact.) The buildings and scenery don't look quite right, especially since it's all mostly photographed in a manner that gives everything dull and dark colors. The real problems with the movie, however, are what I stated in my summary line. At the end of the movie, there are a number of plot threads that haven't been properly resolved, so it's hard to figure out who did exactly what and why. Even director Evelyn Maude Purcell was apparently bewildered by the twists and turns, because she doesn't manage to build up any tension or suspense. At best, the movie feels strictly routine. There's nothing here to grab an audience's attention, so I say avoid it. It's not the worst movie ever made, but oddly there are a lot of worse movies out there that are more interesting to watch than this movie.
This movie was surprisingly good. I did not expect to like it. I ended up liking it very much. I would suggest that it is best to watch it NOT reading too much about it. Gina Gershon does a great job....and there are twists and turns here that keep you guessing. I honestly didn't know who to believe right up to the very end of the movie. It had me on the edge of my seat. Gina Gershon's acting was superb, and really surprisingly good. It's a low budget flick, so I judge it from that standpoint and from that standpoint, it was excellent! It's definitely an "escape" movie. LOL. I give it an 8 out of 10, but with a qualifier: that is, that I am judging it against other of these types of movies, not against say, "Psycho"...against other low budgets, this is definitely at the top of the pile.
Although this was a good movie with a decent storyline, they made a large flaw, I could not overlook.Her boyfriend which is part of the Police Department, and working on the case, is trying to keep her from being arrested and accused of this crime. Half way through the movie, he takes her to the scene of the crime, because the evidence keeps mounting against her. While there he tells her how they believe things happened. According to him, they believe that her ex was tied and bleeding to death, while he laid there and witnessed his soon to be new wife's rape and murder. Read that last sentence carefully. Does the word RAPE stand out at all. This is a woman who RAPED and left semen behind, after she over came her ex, with the other woman present. Ties and left him bleeding to death, and then went to work raping the other woman, and then killing her.Something just a tad bid wrong with this whole picture, don't ya think?
If having a strong screen presence means that it's difficult for viewers to keep their eyes off you, then Gina Gershon certainly has "it" (the fact that she looks about 10 years younger than her actual age doesn't hurt, either). So it's a shame that her talent is wasted in completely average thriller fare such as this. It's also nice to see Michael Biehn again, but he has the standard cop-romantically-involved-with-the-main-suspect role (actually, I found his partner more enjoyable). Sean Patrick Flanery has the "obsessive psycho" role - a role we've seen about a million times before - and he doesn't bring anything new or creative to it. His uninspired performance is one of the reasons this film is nothing-special; the "TV-movie-of-the-week"-style direction is another. The plot holds your interest until the end, but the "moment of revelation" comes through the oldest trick in the book. I was disappointed. (**)