6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing!, October 17, 2004
This review is from: Border Blues (DVD)
This non-stop action thriller will take you on an unbelievable rollercoaster ride of mindblowing twists and turns. Set in seedy Mexico, urban Los Angeles, and exotic Moscow, this tale follows the story of the beautiful and vulnerable Rita, in search of her mysteriously lost husband. The action is intense. Plus, Eric Roberts, Ekaterina Rednikova, Eric Estrada, and Gary Busey turn in pulse throbbing, extraordinary performances. And up and coming director Rodion Nahapetov unfolds the story with great skill. You have to see this amazing film!!!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a good movie . . ., June 28, 2010
This review is from: Border Blues (DVD)
This movie is a little different than the average hollywood genre, it is far from perfect, but it has its own uniqueness to it. It isn't like some of the more canned hollywood movies, perhaps that is why I liked it, there was a kind of informality, off-beat humor that makes it unique, and it is not one that you can predict what is going to happen long before it happens like so many movies of the Hollywood genre.
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1.0 out of 5 stars
a non-start non-action film, July 23, 2006
This review is from: Border Blues (DVD)
Back when literacy prevailed, it wasn't uncommon for everyday people to comment, "Given the life I've had, I could write a book." In this instance, Rodion Nahapetov has made the film equivalent--as a screenwriter, a director, and a lead actor. His acting, at least, isn't terrible.
As a writer, Nahapetov has issues to express and share, which could be said to bring unexpected nuances to the action genre. Haplessly, the reverse is true: themes of interest in MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON or parts of GREEN CARD are frittered on Nahapetov's desire to construct a marketable "American" movie. As such the numerous chase scenes are busy but go nowhere, and advance the contrived & convoluted story minimally.
Eric Roberts is sort of a B-list Johnny Depp. I always want to see him on the screen but seldom in the projects he actually makes. In this instance Nahapetov creates for him a character so mercurially unrooted that no one else could have played the part so well. But Roberts' frequent shifts from sinister to sympathetic and back again recall the "big reveal" in CHINATOWN: he's a villain, he's a victim, he's a potential rapist, he's a proxy dad. Plot driven contradictions are not the same thing as characterization. (The same inconsistencies afflict poor Gary Busey, whose non-role is mercifully reduced to a virtual cameo.)
As a writer and actor, Nahapetov should have fired Nahapetov the director. Especially in his treatment of poor Erik Estrada, whose Edgar Kennedy (minus the slow burn) Mexican cop is always over the top. Estrada gesticulates each phoneme in his lines with such hammy ferocity, it appears he's simultaneously signing for the deaf.
How sad that Nahapetov apparently had to botox his perspective on being an alien into action tripe, in order for his movie to be made. Of interest to those who are curious to see how non-natives perceive the action genre, but others would do well not to squander their postage costs.
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