Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43255 in DVD
• Brand: GOODING,CUBA JR.
• Released on: 2008-10-21
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Cantonese, English, French, Korean, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Album Description
Academy Awardr Winner Cuba Gooding, Jr. is a Border Patrol Officer in the New Mexico desert with a secret past that is about to catch up with him. When his old gang leader tracks him down and forces him to smuggle drugs across the border, he must choose between the life he swore to leave behind and saving his family at any cost.

Amazon.com
A decent potboiler with an original story idea, Linewatch stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as U.S. Border Patrol Agent Michael Dixon. Patrolling part of the border between Mexico and America, Michael is good at his job, compassionate toward illegal aliens and tough on those who exploit them. While pursuing a "coyote" (someone who smuggles aliens over the border) who left a truckload of Mexicans to die, Michael inadvertently breaks up a meeting between drug-smuggling criminals. The aborted gathering, it turns out, involved members of a vicious, L.A. gang that once included Michael as a member and prospective leader, unbeknownst to his wife (Sharon Leal). The gang's current leader, Drake (Omari Hardwick), demands that Michael help him work out a way to get the drugs or watch his family suffer the consequences. Largely rumbling along as a low-key suspense thriller, Linewatch has a number of quirky elements. The most interesting is a familial bond between Drake and his gang expressed through constant, inconsequential banter that could easily be part of a Quentin Tarantino movie. There is also the surreal battleground of the story's border problems, manifested in a weird scene in which Drake's boys get into a simultaneous shootout with Minutemen-like vigilantes and adolescent Mexican boys in soldier regalia. Kevin Bray, an experienced television director, proves competent guiding the material and actors to the screen. But it's hard not to wonder what someone like Sam Peckinpah might have done with Linewatch. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Linewatch - Gooding at his best - Great Story Line
I wish I had watched the extras before viewing the movie. You get a real sense of what the message is and get an 'Aha' moment after viewing it. Linewatch is a very well done, very good cinematograpy, excellent feel.

Yes, a bit slow, I think the portrayal is one of what life is like for the Border Patrol. You have your moments where you have activity, but there are times where you are out in the wilderness and time just drags on. There are a few comments about family life, 'wish we could move,' and the like. You do get a sense of beauty, seeing the variety of landscape that is the American desert. Filmed in New Mexico, you get that endless feeling, that the desert just never ends.

The movie takes off when our main character runs into his former gangsta connections. He and his family are taken 'for a ride' as you sense the two sides, Gooding vs. the Ganstas, are vying for power. As the extra mentions, he is a man seeking redemption. You have a lot of young actors, very new in their careers, who play very believable parts.

The most interesting scene is where the drugs are finally delivered (this is what the gangsters are looking for) very close to the border.

What I like is that the producer is attempting to weave a couple of stories and messages into one with a plot to boot. We have the border and all the troubles of illegal crossings, the drug war and the Border Patrol, really on the front line of both. We get an introduction to some 'Patriots' who are violent as well. Not sure if that is more of figment of imagination or not, because we hear about the patriots on the border, but not as extreme as these guys are.

The slowness is for a purpose, sit back and relax and wait to be pleasantly surprised by an overall great movie.

Lots of holes, but filmed with good quality stock.
The best summation I could think of for this Cuba film was to imagine the Chief from Men of Honor being a Border Patrol Agent (honest, hard working family man, maybe some history) - then half way through the film becoming the crooked cop from Dirty, but instantly. So much so that it takes the film down a road (literally) of not caring about him.

The quality of film stock is outstanding, the sets and outdoor locations were utilized very well, which adds a good A-List feel to the film. But the supporting cast tries to hard to add gangsta-comedy relief to a an already unbelievable story line. Dean Norris (who I remember all the way back to Starship Troopers) has a nice screen presence, but every few minutes something else would happen that takes you out of the story. A murdering gangster becomes a Federal Agent? Maybe... The agents do not wear any body armor on going into homes? Probably not... The agent gets located by his old crew and they threaten his family and he is ok with it? No... Our main character decides to facilitate an epic drug deal across the border and not utilize the 50 agents in his office to save him and his family? Whatever...

The ending is even more unbelievable, but by that time you have invested the effort so you see it through because it looks good. Don't bother asking why some things keep happening the way they do because most of them will not get answered. The DVD cover art is off again; That vehicle is never in the movie, the stances of the gangsters in his glasses and to the side of the vehicle are lame (and never in the film), etc.

Maybe a rental, or not.

Ex-gangbanger in the border patrol
In Texas as far from the LA crips and bloods as he could get 'mad dog'
has a lonely job and a nice family. Chasing a coyote brings up ancient history come to haunt him. He has enough trouble with white vigilantes.
He runs into his homies as they are trying to get a shipment of drugs up from Mexico. These are murderers and drug pushers from the big city
in his dry washes and desert territory. The trouble isn't going to leave him or his family alone... Good tension and acting here.