Parents' Guide to Borderline

Borderline is nearly unwatchable. (Note that writer-director Jimmy Warden previously wrote the 2023 Cocaine Bear.) One after another, examples of nonsense parade before us. A man who was incarcerated for stabbing the bodyguard of the pop star he claims loves him escapes, yet no police are sent to constantly monitor the pop star's home. When an abductor leaves his hostages in a car (with the key!) to go off and shoot someone else, even after hearing the shot, the hostages mindlessly remain in the car waiting for their kidnapper to return, instead of driving away to get help. Time after time, we wonder why no one calls the police and why a bodyguard keeps acting kindly toward a violent criminal. Why does the stalker who is so in love with the pop star keep mistaking large men for the female object of his alleged affection?

Add to that confusing mix the fact that neither the supposedly charming mental patient nor the selfish pop star he "loves" are particularly likable, and the movie collapses in on itself. Jack Nicholson's son Ray looks like his dad but, in the role of a smiling psycho reminiscent of Jack's character in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 The Shining, he's working far too hard to persuade us he has charm. The best scene in the movie features a homicidal maniac taking a break from homicide to sing a beautiful Celine Dion duet with her victim. It's utterly implausible in the context of the story, but the singing is pretty. There is nothing borderline about the characters here. Skip this one.