Border Blues (2004 Video) User Reviews

Not much to recommend.

[i_am_here · 2/10 · 26 August 2005]

Having sat through this mess I was very surprised to see it had consumed a quoted estimated budget of $10M. Where did they spend that? The acting from all, with the possible exception of the little girl, was terrible. The special effects, which included firing guns, were a joke - cartoons have more realism.

As for the story..... where was it? Simply a sequence of disjointed, badly acted and badly produced scenes.

Was there anything positive? Well.... yes. I was impressed with the fact that natives of Russia spoke Russian and those of Mexico spoke Spanish instead of the universal American that spoils so many other films.

The punchline for the film appears to be "He borders on insanity". Trouble is, it's not clear who they are referring to. On this evidence, most of those involved in throwing this together would be valid candidates.

Confused and Bewildered

[Jamesst · 2/10 · 30 November 2008]

I hesitated on giving this title a rating quite so low as this given that it did entertain and I thought perhaps it could gain some points for being so awful that it was good but really I can't truthfully say that it was good in any way. It was able to keep me watching whilst suffering from insomnia and with nothing else on TV a 2 am but I don't think that's a great claim to fame, I guess the hook - the watch-ability factor - for this title comes from trying to see if it really is serious. Of course one figures out after about 45 minutes that this obviously really is the plot and look they were going for, and there really isn't going to be a great comedic reveal; but somehow you just can't shake the feeling it's supposed to some sort of post-modern reflexive irony or something. I found myself eagerly watching every minute to see when the real movie would begin. In case you hadn't guessed from the review's tone, that moment never came.

Given how poorly detailed the plot synopsis is, and the fact that everywhere else on the internet everyone has merely copy and pasted the same similar synopsis, you'll have trouble figuring out what this is about but don't worry because if you actually did watch this you still wouldn't know. There is a quiet sense of awe with this film, a kind of confusion and bewilderment, you just can't quite believe that someone actually WROTE this, or that everyone who starred in it, must have read at least some of it to know their lines, or that a producer read it and thought it would be a good idea, and not only that, but actually got as far as filming it, acting it out, hiring crew and spending 10 MILLION DOLLARS?!?!? I mean how could such serious, pre-meditated and prolonged insanity occur in the minds of so many people simultaneously? It's a bit like some kind of mass hysteria that lasted for the entire length of the production process, were they held at gun point or something? The only idea that makes sense to me as to how this 'mess' could, somehow accidentally, materialise is that one day, ONE guy sat down and watched as many episodes of days of our lives, and the young and the restless and Baywatch as he possibly could and casually wondered whether or not a person could actually make a whole feature length film by re-editing a decade's worth of disparate and unrelated clips. The result was this.... every cut is odd and doesn't make sense or fit with the preceding, each 'scene' is questionable with regard to any idea of a plot or cohesion, all the actors look like they are improvising, or someone just handed them a script 10 minutes prior. You can imagine how difficult and awkward such a scenario would be for a normal film, but picture that same scenario for a film with a plot that doesn't make any sense, "you got 10 minutes to look like you're taking this seriously...and ACTION!" I almost feel sorry for those actors and the difficulty of the task they were given but sadly, truthfully they probably got ample time to realise this film should never have gotten to production and still went ahead with it and probably even rehearsed the terrible performances.

To give one positive, Yekaterina Rednikova, a Russian actor who as a western audience member I've never seen before, is incredibly good looking and it almost doesn't matter how terrible the film is, you can just not hear and block out completely the awful dialogue and get lost in her eyes, I hope she shows up in something better than this that I'll likely see sometime in the future because, DAMN!

Astoundingly AWFUL ............

[merklekranz · 1/10 · 22 November 2009]

Now I have no idea what this was about, because the writing seemed like something that was put through a blender. The acting by all concerned is atrocious. Gary Busy and Eric Roberts must have been desperate for work, and the entire production reeks from the pop gun audio effects to the unbelievably boring desert car chases. There might be no plot synopsis, because there essentially is NO PLOT. Beware that the acting by both Eric Roberts and Gary Busy is terrible, and they are speaking English. To add to the confusion, a good portion of this mess is in subtitles. You have been warned. Avoid at all costs. This is one of the worst movies I have ever reviewed. - MERK

I don't recommend to read the reviews

[minunimion · 7/10 · 9 October 2022]

Recently I understood that the majority count nothing. So what the majority of the reviewers think is just garbage. What do you want? An Oscar? This movie was pretty good, the acting was more than acceptable and very good for some characters, the plot was acceptable and I enjoyed this movie and I'm happy that I didn't listen to the reviewers. If I did that I would miss a movie that, in the end, I really liked.

Interesting that some characters spoke in Russian and others in Spanish, I mean they spoke in their mother languages and I liked that too.

There are a lot of movies out there and so bad that I can't believe that someone would be able to watch them and many times they got a better score than this... that means that unfortunately the honesty has gone and someone is paid to write good and bad reviews.

Very sad, many people don't have any more a conscience, they just think of money, that time has gone forever, it's time to be better people, not worse.

Give a try to this movie, maybe you'll like it.

Response

[winfredcaddell · 10/10 · 12 August 2006]

I thought the story and effects might have been weak but the acting was pretty good. A lot of these actors are well respected thespians from Russia. So overall, the acting was done well. Maybe the writing could have been a little better. Sometimes, the best actors can't make anything out of a bad script (Ex Halle Barry in Catwoman). The budget of $10 million wasn't just for these film. From what I understand, there was a whole series that was in Russia. This was just the opening movie and then several episodes followed. I heard it did really well in Russia. Again, some of the effects were cheesy but when you are trying to do a whole series for that much money, things can look cheesy.