Dark comedy is a genre that is hard to master. Finding the perfect balance of humor and horror or whatever else you’re going for is not easy. It takes directors years to get it right. Jimmy Warden, the director of Borderline, gives it the old college try but doesn’t find the mix I was looking for in the end. This wasn’t my cup of tea at all, if I’m being honest.  I’m not sure what he was truly going for here.

Paul Duerson (Ray Nicholson) is a man who has an infatuation with a pop star, Sofia (Samara Weaving). He shows up at her house one evening to visit her, hoping to marry her, but is greeted by her security guard, Bell (Eric Dane) instead. He subsequently shoots said security guard and enters her house. Resulting in police arriving and taking him off to prison because she wasn’t home. Six years later, he escaped prison with the help of some friends of his to try and renew this sick and twisted fantasy of trying to marry this pop star.

This premise, as used as a dark comedy, was a bit misguided for my liking. Now, as a full-fledged horror film, it would have worked much better. The fact that the casting director and producers cast Samara Weaving, one of the best horror actresses working today, wasn’t missed by me. She is great in similar types of roles. The comedy aspect made this come across as a farce instead of something with a more dramatic take on it. This looked better than it actually was. Weaving was wasted in this role.

Along with Weaving and Nicholson, there wasn’t much of a supporting cast, but Jimmy Fails plays a close friend of Weaving’s character that gets embroiled in the craziness. Patrick Cox plays JH, a big guy who helped Nicholson’s character escape prison and set up the whole marriage scenario. Another friend of his Penny (Alba Baptista) is pretty sadistic and a good singer as well. She has a duet of a Celine Dion song “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” with Weaving’s character. 

There are a few sequences that gave me good horror film vibes, such as one of the assailants getting set on fire. The end scene in the movie was filled with goofy humor and bloody moments involving all the players in the story.  In fact, one character had their throat cut, which subsequently then bled all over another character. These scenes were far and in-between in the overall movie. I would have enjoyed the film more if there were more sequences like these.

Nicholson is an actor who has made a career in dark comedies or straight-up rom coms. He has that goofy odd strange personality to him. Some people may like this type of character actor, but I’m not a fan of this kind of thing. He tries to be funny, but he comes across as just annoying and obnoxious in the end. That makes for a long movie when the main antagonist has this type of personality. I just don’t find his type of dark humor very funny. I’m sure I’m not the only one, though.

Borderline is a movie that tries to be a dark comedy, but instead, it ends up being dumb for lack of a better word. I could see the main antagonist’s agenda coming from a mile away. The script wasn’t very original at all. That makes for a long film even though it was only an hour and half long to begin with. Both Weaving and Nicholson were misused in this movie. A scream queen like Weaving should be in better films more in the vein of straightforward horror films, and Nicholson is just downright annoying, goofy, odd, and strange. I was sick of him after the cold opening. That made me not interested in seeing the rest of this movie. This ended up being just another bad film, not the funny dark comedy it was intended to be. 

1 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen