The Border [DVD]

Although this is not a great film it is a lot better than its reputation. Jack Nicholson is excellent and Harvey Keitel is very good. The beautiful and beguiling Mexican actress, Elpidia Carrillo, handles a limited role with enough artistry to make me wonder why I never heard of her before. Turns out she does have a healthy list of credits both internationally and in the US.

The direction by Tony Richardson, who had his heyday in the sixties with films as varied as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Tom Jones (1963), and The Loved One (1965), all adapted from novels, is at times inspired and artistic, and at other times as ordinary as dishwater. I don't think he was able to make up his mind while directing this film about whether he wanted win an award at Cannes or Venice or to just sell some tickets. As it turns out he did neither as well as he might have. Nonetheless as a snapshot of poor Mexican immigrants (and would-be immigrants) as they clash with the border patrol culture twenty-some years ago The Border is definitely worth a look. Particularly vivid is the depiction of the absurdities and hypocrisies among the coyotes, the "wets," the border patrol rank-and-file, the law and the realities of life along both sides of the thin strip separating the promised land from the third world.

Nicholson plays Charlie Smith, a border patrol cop with a trailer trash wife (Valerie Perrine) who yearns to move up to the luxury of duplex living. In particular she wants to move in next door to her high school girlfriend Savannah (Shannon Wilcox) who is married to the "Cat" (Harvey Keitel). Charlie Smith is a bit of an innocent who was satisfied with his trailer home and his sexy, loving, but not overly sharp, wife Mary. When they do pick up and move to Texas he runs headlong into the corrupt lifestyle of the Cat and the cruel realities of his job which consists of arresting illegal immigrants and sending them back to Mexico. Meanwhile Mary isn't just sitting home twiddling her thumbs. Instead she is out buying water beds and dinette sets, overstuffed chairs and sofas, and other knickknacks that put a strain on the couple's budget which leads Charlie into temptation. But when taking kickbacks turns to murder, Charlie draws the line in the sand (literally as it happens) and he and the Cat have a rather rude falling out. Meanwhile Charles spots Carrillo as the lovely Maria with babe in arms and a little brother at her side. Predictably the system cruelly exploits her, bringing Charlie to her rescue.

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.

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.

DVD has become the equivalent of the old late night double-bill circuit, the last chance to catch old movies on the verge of being completely forgotten like The Border. There were great expectations for this back in 1982 - a script co-written by The Wild Bunch's Walon Green, Jack Nicholson in the days when he could still act without semaphore and a great supporting cast (Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates, Valerie Perrine), Tony Richardson directing (although he was pretty much a spent force by then) - but now it doesn't even turn up on TV. The material certainly offers a rich seam of possibilities for comment on the 80s American Dreams 80s of capitalism and conspicuous consumption, with Nicholson's border patrolman turning a blind eye to the odd drug deal or bit of people trafficking to finance his wife's relentless materialism, until he rediscovers his conscience when he finds out his partners are also in the baby selling business. Unfortunately, he never really gets his hands dirty, barely even turning a blind eye before his decency rises to the surface. The film feels always watered down as if too many rewrites and too many committees have left it neutered and, sadly, the recent DVD release is a missed opportunity to restore the original, nihilistic ending where Nicholson goes over the edge and firebombs the border patrol station that was cut after preview audiences found it too downbeat but which still featured prominently in the film's trailers.

While that probably wasn't too convincing considering how low-key Nicholson's crisis of conscience is in the film, it had to be better than the crude reshot climax where the film abandons logic and even basic rules of continuity: at one point he's holding characters at gunpoint, then he's somewhere else and they're free trying to kill him, one character goes from injured at his house to hopping around like a gazelle on the banks of the Rio Grande while Valerie Perrine's character gets dumber on an exponential level. The villains of the piece are disposed of with absurd ease (and one impressive car stunt) in time for a clumsily edited happy ending and you start wondering if you somehow found yourself watching another film entirely. What makes it all the more clumsy is that the rest of the film is so flat and underwhelming that the sudden lurch into melodrama is all the more jarring. Unfortunately Ry Cooder's beautiful title song, Across the Borderline, says it all much more economically. But if you want to know the film's real crime, it's completely wasting the great Warren Oates in a nothing bit part. When even he can't make an impression, you know something's really wrong. All in all, all too easy to remember why I found this so forgettable.

The DVD has no extras - not even a trailer - but has an acceptable 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, although many night scenes lack detail.

I have to confess I'd never heard of this show before. Unsurprising when you discover it's a Canadian production rather than from the USA.

Boy, what a find! I ended up watching all three series over a period of two weeks. Couldn't get enough.

The show's based on the activities of the (fictitious) Canadian Immigration and Customs Service, a department responsible for monitoring all nefarious activities taking place along the US/Canada border. This gives the writers free reign to cover everything from illegal immigration to the mafia, drug trafficking, gun running, honour killings, espionage, terrorism and a host of subjects in between. I'm trying desperately to come up with a comparison for anyone who hasn't seen it and about the only thing I can come up with is a cross between a less glamorous Spooks, Homeland and a darker, much grittier version of NCIS. But, in fact, I think it's heaps better than any of those.

Series like these do require a certain formula, so you do get the tough boss and the slightly nerdy computer guy who loves his job, but you can forgive them that thanks to the sharp plotting, excellent acting, and the realistic, often witty, dialogue. Unlike glossier shows from the US - Burn Notice, Human Target and the truly execrable CSI Miami, to name but three - the characters are, given the parameters of the concept, entirely believable.

They're all `regular' people, too - no one turns up to a crime scene in a tight fitting white pant suit for example. There are no lantern jawed hunks or sun kissed babes. This lot can act. There are a couple of recognizable faces in the show - both American, I'm assuming for viewers south of the border - Sofia Milos and Grace Park - playing US agents, but other than those two, all the players are probably, to a Brit audience at least, new faces.

The show tackles tough subjects with many episodes inspired by real events. It even came under flack for supposedly showing US/Canadian relations in a bad light, with the US being the big bully, whose agenda is to manipulate and sometimes undermine Canadian foreign and domestic policy.

Interestingly, there's a comment on Wikipedia that states:

"Formerly secret diplomatic cables published by the whistle blower organization WikiLeaks revealed that US diplomats in Canada warned their superiors that The Border and several other popular Canadian dramas had an "insidious" anti-American bias."

A good reason for watching, then, some might say.

I knew I was viewing something special when, in the episodes involving terrorism they actually knew how to pronounce Iraq - `ear-raq' rather than the dumber American pronunciation: `eye-raq'. A refreshing change, I can tell you.

As with most series, it takes a couple of episodes before it finds its feet but when it does, it's pretty damned terrific and by the time you hit season two it's turned into one of the best TV crime shows I've seen for quite a while. When the Calabrian Mafia turn up it goes into over drive with a tremendous season two finale that is picked up again in the outstanding third and final series.

It was a real shame the show was cancelled - amazingly due to low viewing figures. In many ways I wished that I hadn't seen it and that I was coming to it for the first time.

A true gem...not to be missed by anyone who's into smart, intelligent crime shows. There aren't too many of those around. More's the pity.

If they do make it available for Region 2 and you do like it, please post a review. It deserves no less.