Synopsis
A corrupted border agent decides to clean up his act when an impoverished woman's baby is put up for sale on the black market.
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Cast
- Jack NicholsonCharlie Smith
- Harvey KeitelCat
- Valerie PerrineMarcy
- Warren OatesRed
- Elpidia CarrilloMaria
- Shannon WilcoxSavannah
- Manuel ViescasJuan
- Jeff MorrisJ.J.
- Mike GomezManuel
- Dirk BlockerBeef
Recommendations
- 80
Salon
Jack Nicholson is at his best playing a burned-out border patrol officer in a small Texas town. - 80
The New Yorker
Richardson is able to encompass so much in the widescreen frame that he shows how the whole corrupt mess works. - 75
Slant Magazine
The Border is marvelously detailed. The script, by Deric Washburn, Walon Green, David Freeman, is peppered with lively obscenities and slights that communicate the debauched cynicism of this world. - 75
IndieWire
The film unravels towards the end, devolving into a too-neat shoot-em-up finale that stinks of studio interference, but Nicholson’s performance is a marvel throughout. It’s time it got its due. - 75
The Associated Press
The Border is a well-made action-adventure film enhanced by authentic settings and a superlative performance by Jack Nicholson. [08 Feb 1982] - 70
Newsweek
The Border has the air of a project marred by studio compromises -marred but not broken. Warts and all, it has more passion, texture and bite than anything Richardson has done in a long while. [01 Feb 1982, p.72] - 50
The New York Times
Although it has been made with intelligence, is well directed and acted and is in touch with the ways of lower-middle-class American life, it has the sort of predictable outrage and shape of a made-for-television movie. It has suspense but little excitement. - 50
Time Out
A Tex-Mex stew that looks to have all the right spicy ingredients, but emerges under gringo chef Richardson as not exactly indigestible, merely flavourless.
