On the Border (1998) (TV)

User Rating:

4.7/10   

Director:

Bob Misiorowski

Writers:

Christopher Harwood (story) &
Josh Olson (story) ...

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

A bank robbery to die for.

Plot:

Jake Barnes is a security guard in a Texas border town bank. His boss asks him to spy on his sexy wife, that Jake is having an affair with. When he meets Danish girl Kristen, he gets caught up in a plot to steal millions of dollars of laundry money. Jake is caught between two women who want to become his partner in the theft. When the time comes for the robbery, a furious gun battle ensues that follows cross after double-cross...

Plot Keywords:

Security Guard | Marriage | Repetition | White Dress | Bathroom Scene

Cast

Casper Van Dien	...	Jake Barnes
Bryan Brown	...	Barry Montana
Daniel Baldwin	...	Ed
Rochelle Swanson	...	Rosalita
Camilla Overbye Roos	...	Kristen
Pedro Armendáriz Jr.	...	Herman
Heidi Jo Markel	...	Sherree
Bentley Mitchum	...	Sykes
John Bishop	...	Phil
Bridget Wilkes	...	Bank Hostage
Gina Angela Ritchie	...	Annie (as Angela Ritchie)
Elizabeth Bradley	...	Mexican Street Hooker
Bill Stuart	...	Customs Officer
Valentin Sandoval	...	Illegal Mexican Man
Alma Nava	...	Illegal Mexican Woman

Also Known As:

Coyote Rain (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, sex and language.

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:MA (cable rating) | Australia:R (original rating) | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 (video premiere) | Spain:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

El Paso, Texas, USA

Company:

Nu Image Films

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Jake and Rosalita are staring across the border, the shot of downtown El Paso is played in reverse. This is obvious by looking at the people and the cars on the street below, moving backwards.

Soundtrack:

Happiness

Pleasant enough

This movie was actually quite engrossing most of the time. It was a pretty dime-a-dozen standard story, but it had an attractive cast (Van Dien's Jake and the two females in particular - man, that Rosie has got breasts to kill for!), very decent acting, and a very well told story, at least until the sadly disappointing end. The plot keeps you guessing, because it can go in many different directions and there're lots of different motivations involved (money, love, friendship, loyalty). Ultimately, however, it fails to show us what the characters are thinking (like, why didn't Jake confide in Rosie?), and the end, where almost everybody doublecrosses everybody, was not satisfying to me. It is unclear if Jake was on the mafia boss' (Lazarco, or whatever his name was) payroll all along; if he were, it would make sense (and make the movie better), but we should have gotten some clues to that effect in the course of the story. As it were, the writing failed to add coherency to an otherwise very promising little story about the basic hopes and desires of the people on the moral underbelly of society.

5 out of 10.