Linewatch

hellow

Great movie. Nothing wrong with it other than predictable perhaps. Exciting film. Give it a go. Try it. Definitely watchable. Had me hooked from beginning to end.

This movie is just another crime movie like any other. The story is kind of over the top and unrealistic and the movie just isnt that well made. Just a bit of a bore with a few good things about it such as action.

The plot: A cop with a dark past comes face-to-face with the past he's been running away from. Cuba Gooding, Jr stars as a border patrol officer in New Mexico. He's trying to track down the ruthless "coyote" who left illegal immigrants for dead. In the mean time, he's clashing with racist vigilantes and his superiors, while trying to salvage his family life. This get even more complicated when some L.A. gang members show up, recognize him, and threaten to kill his family, unless he acts as their inside man. I liked the first part of this movie better, before the gangsters showed up. Once the gangster plot took over, I became considerably less enthused, though I stuck around to see how it would end. The gangsters have a few good scenes, but they never really get the characterization that good villains require. In one memorable scene, they engage in some particularly brutal hazing, which does a good job of making you hate them... but it doesn't really tell you who they are. The movie plays out somewhat predictably, but the competent stunts and fight choreography make the action sequences pretty watchable. The acting wasn't really a problem for me, but I doubt anyone here is going to win any awards. I generally enjoyed Linewatch, but it's difficult to recommend the movie to anyone but other die-hard Cuba Gooding, Jr fans. His career has been in freefall ever since the mid-2000s, but I actually liked most of his recent movies. They're not great movies, but they're better than what Steven Seagal has been shoveling out.

"Linewatch" is one of those movies whose plot doesn't excite you. It started off compelling enough, but then it devolved into something rather basic. Michael "Mad Dog Mike" Dixon (Cuba Gooding Jr.) was a border patrol agent who stumbled upon a box truck full of dead immigrants. His search for the coyote responsible brought him to a honeycomb hideout of felons. His partner Luis (Omar Paz Trujillo) was shot at the location while Mike was able to take out three of the four bad guys. The fourth bad guy got away, but not before a pause and a gander at Mike as if he knew him. It turns out that the criminal known as Cook (Malieek Straughter) did know Mike and he took that information back to his boss Kimo (Omari Hardwick). What we would come to learn is that Mad Dog used to roll with Kimo, Cook and the rest of the gang. We don't know the terms of Mike's departure from the gang, but it doesn't seem like he was able to retire with a warm send off. Kimo paid Mike a visit at his home and demanded he help restore the damage he caused. Apparently, Mike killed three crucial connections Kimo needed for his drug running venture, and Mike, being a border patrol agent, was uniquely suited to help reboot his pharmaceutical empire. Mike wasn't all that motivated to help smuggle drugs across the border now that he was a border patrol agent and all, but Mike was a family man and Kimo did the cliche thing and threatened Mike's wife and daughter. As I said, the plot wasn't very inspiring. I watched with very little interest. I don't know if this movie was going for exciting, thrilling, or intriguing, but it was none of those. It was a pedestrian plot that failed to register.

There's nothing sadder than watching an actor's career collapse especially when this person has given us the pleasure and the excitement that Cuba Gooding Jr brought to his role in Jerry Maguire. Actually, he was the only reason to see that whole contraption of a movie, the only actor that kept it (half) alive. But since then, he (and the audience, too) came from disappointment to disappointment, without ever taking a part or a movie worthy of his talent. And worst of all, when he starred in Radio and seemed to take the road of Tom Hanks toward virtuousness, honestly it was time to run out of the theater. But this new movie, Linewatch, could have been an interesting turn for him because it promised to be a muckraking drama in the wake of Tony Richardson's The Border. But none of the themes that are set in the first fifteen minutes of the movie are developed; we are waiting for the story to get new dimensions but this is helpless because the director, Kevin Bray, refuses to deliver if not great movie-making - at least the zinger we need to keep us awake. And we are waiting for Cuba to do something but even he must have realized that this was leading nowhere so by the end (which is ridiculous) he seems to have given up on this one like the audience.

Cuba Gooding portrays a seemingly respectable cop whose shady past catches up with him, jeopardising his family and career. The concept may not be original, but Gooding's performance and reactions to some wretched and desperate conflicts serve to enhance the voyeuristic pleasure. The well developed, colourful and generally unsavoury characters surrounding the drug and people trafficking industry add grit to the realism and enhance our understanding of, and sympathy for, Dixon's predicament. Set against the harsh but stunning background of New Mexico's border country, superbly directed and acted, this is a cut above your average crime flick.

Linewatch had to be one of the most boring action movies I have seen. It certainly didn't look like it was going to be the greatest movie, but it had the potential to be a decent action movie. Cuba Gooding Jr. is Agent Michael Dixon of the US Border Patrol working on the US/Mexican border. Michael Dixon had a mysterious past he always wanted to leave behind which is under threat of being exposed by High Noon Gang member Cook (Malieek Straughter) following a shootout which leaves a fellow US Border Patrol agent dead. The High Noon Gang leader Kimo (Omari Hardwick) blackmails Dixon to help smuggle in a drug shipment following threats made to Dixon's family. Dixon must also stay ahead of fellow US Border patrol colleagues, including Warren Kane (Dean Norris). It's hard to believe Cuba Gooding Jr. was a quality actor once upon a time. Cuba Gooding Jr. also won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the arrogant yet charismatic football player Rod Tidwell in the Tom Cruise feel good movie Jerry Maguire (1996). Cuba Gooding Jr.'s career has been stuck in the doldrums for several years now and this movie has done his career no favours. It would be great to see Cuba Gooding Jr. make a comeback someday and drag his career out of the wilderness. If he stopped appearing in poor quality movies like this, then we may see him back in the limelight again. 1/10.

One wonders when Cuba Gooding, Jr is going to find roles that are equal to his talent. LINEWATCH is a sleepwalk/phone-in role written for him by David W. Waterfield and directed by Kevin Bray in a story that attempts to take on a few too many problem situations in one session - illegal immigration, the human manipulation and abuse by the Coyotes and those involved in the crime industry of illegal transportation, Los Angeles ghetto crime life, across the border drug trafficking, family values in gangsters who turn to an honest life, etc. Not that these problems don't deserve our being reminded of serious situations constantly present, but the story has been told many times in better ways. Michael Dixon (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is an ex-gang member living close to the Mexican border with his beautiful wife Angela (Sharon Leal) and daughter as he serves as a US Border Patrol Agent. His heart is in the right place and when he discovers a van full of expired immigrants the pain of his job surfaces. Simultaneously he discovers a band of drug smugglers who work to find a way to transport drugs across the border in to the US - a gang comprised of Michael's old gang. His 'friend', near psychotic Drake (Omari Hardwick - very impressive in this role), makes threats to Michael cajoling him into working with Mike's ex-gang to route the drug smuggling trucks across the border using Mike's affiliation with the US Border Patrol information. The stress that Michael feels under the threat of the gang's violence to his family leads him to act in a manner that brings the story to an end. Gooding remains a fine screen presence: had he been given a better script and story it would be a pleasure to see him again. The supporting cast is fine, the cinematography by Paul M. Sommers is dirty and gritty as it should be and the musical score by Jeff McIlwain all but smothers the dialogue. The reason this film didn't make it in theaters is very obvious. Grady Harp

For some reason recently, I have become interested in Cuba Gooding Jr.'s present career, seeing how he has become box office poison and is now mostly stuck in doing straight-to-video movies. I was wondering if he had learned his lesson after doing those awful theatrical movies and was now picking better scripts (like Jean Claude Van Damme). After seeing several of his recent movies - including this one - I've concluded that either he hasn't learned his lesson or simply doesn't care. In fairness, there are a few good things about LINEWATCH. Though this had a low budget ($5 million), it at least looks decent. The cinematography is above average, and the production team chose existing locations that they didn't have to change yet look believable. Also, Gooding fits in this role better than a lot of his other movie roles (theatrical or otherwise.) But the rest of the movie is pretty much a bust, thanks to its screenplay and its direction. The screenplay clearly needed some more rewrites - its flaws start at the beginning, with the movie seemingly starting at chapter two instead of the beginning. Things do clear up eventually, but then the movie slows down almost to a halt - it takes more than 30 minutes into the movie before the conflict starts for the protagonist. The movie then continues its very slow crawl right up to the climatic scene - there's only about enough story in this movie for a short film, not a feature-length movie. Curiously, though, despite this slow pace, there are several instances where it seems that footage is missing, and it resulted that I was confused several times for several seconds each time as to what exactly happened. Though even if this seemingly missing footage was restored, it might not have helped the movie - it would have made the movie longer and possibly even more of an ordeal to sit through.