'Borderline' Review: Jimmy Warden's Directorial Debut Is a Manic '90s Throwback
Samara Weaving and Ray Nicholson go for broke in this stalker thriller
Jimmy Warden’s script for the 2023 feature Cocaine Bear was a rollicking tribute to the world of ‘80s movies, where heroes and villains had very blurry boundaries and drug use was rampant and, weirdly enough, accepted. Warden makes the move from the page to behind the camera with Borderline, a feature that doesn’t have the same retro feeling as Cocaine Bear, but still provides some quick and dirty fun in 94 minutes.
Sofia (Samara Weaving) is an international pop star and actress who lives in a magnificent house in the Hollywood hills. She also has the love and devotion of a persistent stalker, Duerson (Ray Nicholson) who, while attempting to see her, nearly kills her bodyguard (Eric Dane). Sofia assumes all is well until Duerson breaks out of the mental health facility he’s in, more committed than ever to making Sofia’s his forever.
Warden has talked about this as being a tribute to video store cult classics and, like those movies, there’s little preamble to Borderline. A quick montage of posters and clips illustrates that Sofia is a successful pop culture figure in the ‘90s, a combo Britney Spears/Kirsten Dunst, before we’re thrust into our first meeting with the perpetually grinning Duerson. As Dane’s character, Bell, says, this is not the first time the troubled young man has shown up at Sofia’s door professing the usual stalker rhetoric: that the two are a couple, have been for years, and are to be married.
It’s easy for Nicholson to rest on the laurels of his paternal pedigree, and there are definitely shades of the elder Nicholson in his hammy performance. But Nicholson, the younger, plays the character with a pathetic air. With his greased back hair and silly suit, it’s hard not to laugh at the guy the minute you meet him. Even when he’s coordinating his next visit to Sofia, complete with a panting, Harley Quinn-esque assistant in Penny (Alba Baptista), it’s clear the only people who would find Duerson close to charming are his sycophants. He does have a flair for throwing out Warden’s comedic one-liners. A young girl asking Duerson if he put a priest in a box is perfectly countered with “We put a pastor in a box. We’re Protestants.”
Warden’s script isn’t as chockablock with the same level of humor as Cocaine Bear, but it makes up for that in an ability to convey the interesting themes of the ‘90s thriller, while adding in some bonkers moments of pure absurdity. This comes through best when the French-accented Penny demands Sofia perform a duet with her, culminating in a ‘90s-tinged performance of Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me.” Sofia is not your typical 'damsel in distress nor is she a superhuman Sarah Connor figure; her lack of height means she literally can’t reach the door lock on her massive front door.
Weaving’s complemented by Jimmie Fails as Sofia’s basketball player/hookup Rhodes. Fails is so fun and perfect at physical comedy. He’s also a master of deadpan expressions, particularly in the third act which seems him placed in a position, technically, Sofia should be in.
Weaving does feel similarly placed in the same role she was in in Ready or Not. It’s a far more muted performance, with the actress taking a good ten minutes to even enter the feature. It’s hard to say this is her film, despite her strong placement in the posters. If anything, it’s Dane’s film as the heroic bodyguard Bell. The viewer knows just enough about him to make you root for him: outside of being attacked in the opening frames, he’s a widower with a young daughter. There is something funny about how indestructible he is, in the vein of non-bulky action stars like Chuck Norris.
Borderline is so breathlessly paced it’s fairly action-packed from the minute it begins to the minute it ends and that can make the story’s holes come through. Duerson, for some reason, has face blindness in certain moments, wherein he thinks he’s seeing Sofia but it’s someone else. Though this does lead to some cheap fun in the “haha, it’s a dude” variety, but it’s used inconsistently. What triggers this? Who knows. It’s used more as a deus ex machina, especially at the end.
Borderline won’t stick in your mind by the time April comes but, in the moment, it’s a fun thriller that doesn’t waste time and doesn’t overstay its welcome which is a challenge for a lot of movies these days. The cast is fun, there are some quirky moments, and it definitely feels like a movie you’d stumble upon in a video store (or more likely via the Netflix algorithm) on a Friday.