VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Scott LeBrun Jack Nicholson does solid work in the role of Charlie Smith, a border patrol officer who moves from California to Texas. Saddled with a well meaning but materialistic wife, Marcy (Valerie Perrine), he realizes that his pocketbook can't keep up with her dreams, so he yields to corruption. This is also encouraged by his new neighbor / partner "Cat" (Harvey Keitel). Soon Charlie is taking pity on young mother Maria (Elpidia Carrillo). When her baby is stolen for the purpose of being sold on the black market, he gets involved in her plight.All of the actors here deliver rather under rated performances. With Nicholson, there's no theatricality, no eccentricity, just a good, straightforward, impassioned portrayal. Perrine plays the wife in such a way that you can't really hate her. Keitel is great as always as the shady partner, as is the sadly short lived Warren Oates, near the end of his life and career, as Charlies' new boss. Carrillo is lovely and extremely engaging, and one might wish that she'd had more opportunities in American film over the years. (Most people likely know her as the sole female character in "Predator".) There's a fair bunch of recognizable actors in supporting and bit parts: Shannon Wilcox, Jeff Morris, Dirk Blocker, Lonny Chapman, William Russ, Gary Grubbs, etc.The story, written by Deric Washburn, Walon Green, and David Freeman, is not a great one, but it is entertaining and involving enough to keep ones' attention. Vivid on location shooting is one asset, the sad depiction of the reality of dirt poor Mexicans is another. You can understand why some of these people want to see if their fortunes in the U.S. will be any better. It also benefits from having a main character who's not a squeaky clean, Dudley Do Right type, but is still a basically decent person who will NOT cross certain lines. Viewers will love the expansive widescreen photography and the lovely score by Ry Cooder.At a time when the issues of border policing and illegal aliens are very much on peoples' minds, this film does remain relevant.Seven out of 10.

Predrag To appreciate Jack Nicholson's work in "The Border" you have to take into account the time it was made. Nicholson was just coming off "The Shining" where his performance was universally mocked by the elites as ham boned. His turn here is the polar opposite of Jack Torrance. Nicholson plays a passive border guard submissively going along with a corrupt system until events force him to take a stand for what is right. The transformation of his character is subtle with few broad gestures or demonstratives.The story-line takes place in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico, in which there is the border between the two places (the Rio Grande river, more specifically). It deals a lot with the illegal immigration problem, and other issues that occurred at that time. The immigration issue still with us after all these years, but its hard to imagine a movie dealing with that issue in as thoughtful or morally complex a way as this one does being made today.I think the striking contrast between Charlie's air-headed Mary and the desperate and needy Maria needed to be further explored. As it was played Charlie is just a good Joe doing a good deed or two when in fact we know he is much more involved than that. I think the movie would have been improved by making him choose between the two women as he had to make the moral choice between going with the Cat's corruption or going against him. You gotta see this for Jack Nicholson, one of the great actors of our time, who brings subtlety and veracity to a role that could have been ordinary, while giving us only a hint of the commanding and irreverent style that he would adopt in later years.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

psychorobotape this film is superb on many levels. while jack nicholson and harvey keitel both have an impressively long list of masterly performances, I believe this film ranks near the tops of their oeuvres with a handful of their other performances in films like "the shining" and "the passenger" for nicholson or "the duellists" and "bad timing" for keitel. all of the supporting cast members deliver excellent performances as well. the scenery is beautiful and is shot well. both the story and the dialogue are superlative. The plot progresses dramatically yet plausibly, at no point is the viewer obliged to suspend her disbelief as nicholson's character is backed into a corner by the circumstances developing around him. The action sequences are both dramatic and believable. go watch this film.

Hans-Dieter Seidensticker As a teacher of English in Germany you always look for worthy material on the Latino immigration influx . This film is a valuable opener for such a series of lessons. It reveals the impact of the problem. It makes use of outstanding performances: Nicholson and Keitel are as cool as ever. Pellerine is the American woman. Her friends are that, too. The mafia ring consisting of policemen and coyotes is shown realistically. Violence is explicit but not overdone. Landscape and Latino immigrants are depicted in all their shades and lights. The strong American individual wins in the end - again. The good side beats the bad side. The Ry Cooder soundtrack is more than worth listening to. It is authentically reconstructed as always. Teachers: Pick up that video or DVD and use the movie for your lessons on the US Latino problem!