BORDERLINE

 Ray Nicholson in this is my crazy bisexual king. While the way Borderline opens with VO narration by Nicholson’s Duerson sets us up to think this will be his story, and the trailers made it look like Samara Weaving would be the protagonist, arguably the main character is actually Eric Dane’s Bell, a bodyguard for Samara Weaving’s Sofia.

Weaving shines like always, but it’s Ray Nicholson (son to Jack Nicholson, and boy does he look and act alarmingly similar to dear old dad) who easily steals the entire show. He has crazy down to a T (don’t believe me? Check him out in Novacaine and Smile 2). It’s impossible not to have a blast watching him act his heart out. It’s far from being a serious role, but he entertains like no other. Nicholson is in this a lot, yet by the end it still feels like we needed more of him.

A good deal of the film is sidetracked by the “secondary” plot involving Eric Dane’s Bell and his family, and these parts are never all that entertaining or engaging. Naturally, the two separate plots blend together eventually, but the extended focus on Dane’s Bell comes across like the filmmakers felt like the “A” plot didn’t have enough material to get the end product over the finish line. Troubling and disappointing, indeed. Luckily, all of the scenes involving Nicholson and Weaving are delightfully demented and sick, and Nicholson manages to carry all of the proceedings on his back.

Supporting roles from Alba Baptista, Jimmy Fails, and Patrick Cox don’t leave much of a lasting impression, although Weaving and Baptista share one memorable scene and Fails has a significant role to play in the third act (to humorous effect). Not everything comes together in a clean or satisfying way by the end, but there is still a ton of fun to be had on the way to the end credits.

3.5 STARS