Borderline Review: A Would-Be Potential Comedy Thriller That Suffers From Tonal Inconsistencies
The first thing that gets me excited over Borderline is the pitch-perfect casting of Samara Weaving and Ray Nicholson. The former plays a pop star, where the latter’s a crazily obsessive fan and stalker suffers from a delusional thought. Apparently, he believes he’s about to marry her. On paper, that’s sound promising for a dark-comedy thriller. If only it’s true because the movie is sadly a missed opportunity.
Set in the ’90s era, the movie begins with Paul Duerson (Nicholson) showing up in front of the doorsteps of Sofia’s (Weaving) Hollywood Hills mansion with a flower. But Sofia’s friend and bodyguard, Bell (Eric Dane) happens to be on duty at the time, asking him nicely to leave. The prologue itself takes around 10 minutes or so, detailing both Paul and Bell before the title shows up. And a lengthy one at that, making me wonder why screenwriter Jimmy Warden, who made his directorial debut, feels the need to stretch the prologue unnecessarily.
If you are anticipating Samara Weaving and Ray Nicholson appear on the same screen together, you have to endure the next half an hour as Warden, who also wrote his screenplay, introduces side characters along the way. This includes Rhodes (Jimmie Falls), a sports star who dates Sofia. Then, there’s Bell again, who previously suffered from a knife injury after Paul attacked him months ago, returns to work, which is making his daughter Abby (Yasmeen Kelders) worrying about her dad’s safety.
Speaking of Paul, he has escaped from his psychiatric facility and brings along his fellow nutcase, Penny (Alba Baptista) and his hulking friend J.H. (Patrick Cox). Paul plans to marry Sofia and he wants the whole wedding package. This, in turn, opens up a series of subplots that drag the movie longer than it should, despite its 94-minute length. Case in point: the kidnapping of Eric and his family, and another one revolving around an uniformed police officer on duty rehearsing his dance on the sidewalk, which is supposedly meant to be a broad comedy moment. Either way, it was a filler that does little to advance the storyline.
By the time Paul finally sneaks up behind Sofia and surprises her, I was hoping the movie manages to find a proper footing. Except that it doesn’t happen. Instead, Warden botches the opportunity to bring out the best in Weaving and Nicholson’s performances. Weaving is largely wasted here and she deserves better. The same also goes for Nicholson, where I’m expecting him to go full-on insanity mode just like his famous dad. And yet, for all his attempt to act crazy and delusional, Warden doesn’t really know what to do with his character. By contrast, Nicholson does a better job playing a crazy role in Novocaine.
It doesn’t help either when the tone is all over the place. Certain scenes work better individually than a coherent whole, which can be seen in an extended moment where Sofia and Penny perform an awkward sing-a-long duet of one of Celine Dion’s famous songs. This is also the type of movie that tries so hard to be funny but most of them are a hit-or-miss affair. Warden seems to encompass everything at once as he juggles multiple subplots before connecting the dots.
As the movie approaches the sadly underwhelming third act, the damage has already been done. Warden previously wrote The Babysitter: Killer Queen, which also starred Samara Weaving and Cocaine Bear, both movies that showcased his niche in combining horror/thriller and comedy. But as a first-time director, he still has a long way to go to establish the right voice. I believe there’s a good movie somewhere within Borderline but his schizophrenic, yet tonally confusing direction just makes things worse.
