User Reviews

This movie had a great deal to be excited about, including the setting in TJ, some fine actors who actually turned in excellent performances, a few memorable vignettes that built expectations, and a plot flip late in the movie that was well executed.

Unfortunately these component parts were hashed together into an agonizingly slow moving hodgepodge world where nothing made much sense. It was difficult to build tension, or even interest as a multiplicity of characters were tossed into the mix without clear purpose or clear connection to the main storyline, and the storyline itself included major elements that made no sense at all. I don't claim to be the most observant person in the world but I spent most of the movie wondering what the heck was happening. What was the relationship between Liotta and Cruz? Why did she take care of him? Why bring a hired gun into your home with your little girl and get involved in some kind of fight between cartels? Cruz was cast as a big hearted street-wise prostitute, so why would she act so stupidly? And there was no chemistry at all there, so what's the point? Then we have supposedly highly skilled assassins trying to 'get' one kingpin and they take on about 20 guns in a parking lot -- two of them. Really slick. And Liotta, the professional's professional suddenly goes rogue and single handedly takes on a building full of thugs like something out of a Rambo movie. Give me a break. Don't lure us into believing this is some kind of a thinker's gang movie, then toss in some silly one man against the mob action scene.

It's worth watching for the scenery, the vignettes that work, and some of the acting. But don't get your expectations up too high. There isn't enough action to make this really exciting, and the plodding sentimentality of much of the plot is sundered by the absurdity of some of its elements.

I'd never heard of this film at all but snapped it up when I saw the cast and read the back of the jacket. Suffice to say it didn't quite live up to expectations and once again proved the age old adage of 'don't judge a book (or a DVD) by its cover'. Watchable for the most part, this is a film that adds up at the end to a little bit less than the sum of all its parts. I guessed correctly that the director was pretty new to this game and I must say those behind the scenes did pretty well to secure Liotta, Garcia and Asante for this.

In a nutshell, when the Taliban attempt to form an alliance with a powerful northern Mexican drug cartel, supplying drugs in exchange for being able to use their smuggling network, they attract the attention of US intelligence agencies and the covert ops heat is brought down on them (or so it appears). At the same time there's a power struggle for control of the cartel amongst the heirs apparent to the throne. Little is seen of officialdom and we are instead treated to local operatives/soldiers of fortune and their controllers south of the border.

There is no shortage of violence, tempered by the character of Liotta, a man haunted and tormented by the female victim of a previous hit. Naturally he's seeking some kind of redemption which is nicely and conveniently laid out at the end of the film along with a twist that merely serves to undermine much of any credibility previously established throughout the rest of the film.

The film is short of dialogue and any real character development, instead relying on visuals and the score to create atmosphere, set scenes and keep the story moving along, Some of the editing and camera work seems a bit attention deficit disorder orientated as well, with perhaps a time limit of a couple of seconds placed on any one shot. I didn't find it too much of a problem but I know that it's a major annoyance for some people.

This film was let down badly both with the twist ending and the inclusion of a 'Taliban' plot, both of which were unnecessary and I thought damaging to the credibility of the rest of the film. Not only that, but after an hour and a half or so of portraying Tijuana as a seedy sh!th0le full of thugs, thieves, gangsters and hookers, the director had the audacity to insert a big 'what a wonderful place Tijuana is and what wonderful people live there' message just at the start of the closing credits. I thought this summed up the whole project quite well, not quite doing what the makers thought they were doing.

Worth a look, but not a must see.

On the face of it this looks quite good, an interweaving plot involving drug smugglers, a bounty hunter, the CIA and some terrorists. Unfortunately it didn't live up to its potential. But more of that later, here's a bit about this complicated plot first, without giving too much away. It is modern times and the location is the Mexican border town of Tijuana.

Mark Shields is a bounty hunter, he has been employed by… well let's say by parties as yet unknown, to kill the current leader of a drug smuggling ring, Pelon. The previous leader, Javier Salazar, is very ill and has brought Pelon in to oversee his business much to the disgust of his son, known as Diablo. To help him, Mark has employed Wire, another American. The American authorities are also looking into the smugglers activities, especially since they have word that they are about to do a deal with some Afghani poppy 'farmers' to get their product into the United States. The route they use is known as 'The Line' of the title. Mark is haunted by visions of a woman from his past and, at times, he loses grip on reality. He is befriended by Olivia, who takes him in after he is mugged. But he still has a job to do… I won't say any more, I think that's enough for now.

Quite a well made film which gave you a good flavour of life on the seedier side of the streets of Tijuana. Quite a slow deliberate pace that, I felt, didn't really help the telling of the story. Having said that, decent performances, with Ray Liotta as Mark Shields and Valerie Cruz as Olivia standing out for me. Honourable mentions also go to; Andy Garcia as Javier Salazar, Esai Morales as Pelon, Armand Assante as Padre Antonio, Jordi Vilasuso as Diablo and Kevin Gage as Wire.

At the end of the day I felt this wasn't a great movie, the slow pace and the over-complicated plot made for a bit of a damp squib. There is a neat twist at the end, but by then I had stopped really caring. The plot centred too much on the bad guys which I found a little off putting because I really couldn't engage with them. Over all, not great and not recommended.

My score: 4.6/10

An all-star ensemble in this crime thriller set in one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico, Tijuana. Veteran hit man Mark Shields(Ray Liotta)is assigned to track down Mexican drug lord Pelon(Esai Morales), who is the head of the Salazar Crime Cartel. Pelon has been the target of the American government for quite some time; now they expect Shields and his 20 years of killing experience to bring him down. Pelon puts himself in the cross-hairs with his decision to switch from Colombian cocaine to heroin from Afghanistan. The film lumbers a bit; the acting tries to make up for the lack of action. Others of note in the cast: Andy Garcia, Armand Assante, Bruce Davidson, Danny Trejo and Valerie Cruz.

Normally I wouldn't’t write anything about this movie. The time I’ve already spent on watching it was way too much. But come on…9.3 rating??? It’s kind of intriguing… A some-kind-of-USA-secret-agency just spotted some Afghans that they try to deal with the last big drug cartel in Mexico, Tijuana. Are they going to let the deal take place between the Mexicans with the “Afghan-terrorists”? Of course not. For that they recruited a retired undercover agent to stop them, who in turn recruited two supposedly unstoppable and unmistakable head-hunters to kill the head of the Mexican cartel, who took leadership not actually being part of the Family and is in rivalry with the stepson of the Godfather for taking the leadership of the cartel, who Godfather is in his last days dying and a very good friend with the local priest, who take cares of the soul of the not-from-the-Family leader of the cartel. Where was I? Oh, the two head-hunters are messing up the job because a sniper shoots them, who sniper also tries to kill the not-from-the-family-leader of the cartel but a vision of a woman that he killed in a previous job haunts him just at the moment he was supposed to pull the trigger, which woman was killed by him and filled the sniper with guilt because no one cared about her death. Does anything of the above make any sense? If not add one whore that takes care of the sniper, one good friend of the sniper who gets killed by the cartel, also add that the stepson of the godfather is actually crying with every line he says, add that the Mexicans speak Spanish like a Chinese should speak in Greek, also add that the priest turns out to be the personal Godfather’s killer boy, who Godfather is not actually sick at all but pretends to be, add that both the not-family-leader and the stepson get killed, also the sniper gets killed and that the Godfather is cooperating with the some-kind-of-USA-secret-agency mentioned at the beginning. Confusing? Yes. Unanswered questions? Yes. Idiotic plot? Also. Action movie with no action? You guessed right. Good actors acting worse than me? Sad but true. The bottom line is that I will give 1.000$ if anyone watches the film and makes more sense than these that I have already written.

Set in Tijuana Mexico, we open to the stereotypical ethnic minorities conducting some dodgy business. We know it's dodgy business because they are there of course, along with black cars and men in suits and shades. The usual dodgy mob cartel malarkey. Meanwhile at the US Embassy in Mexico plans are afoot to try and stop any number of items including drugs, guns and people from passing into the States from Mexico and the Middle East.

Throw in a sub-plots involving the new boss of a cartel being targeted for assassination, a retired boss who wants to come back, US agents dealing with vets and a haunted washed up vet getting close to a prostitute and you can see that it all gets rather messy and muddled along the way. The direction and pace is a little confusing even to begin with as it's difficult at first to tell who is dealing with who and why.

Mark Shields (Liotta) is a bit of a mystery character and Garcia appears to be some sort of mob boss Godfather type figure. Unfortunately both are looking rather old and past their prime. Goodfella's this is not. The general cast is pretty impressive though (even if none of them are Mexican, though I guess Danny Trejo looks the part). Trejo is stereo-typically cast and Bruce Davison (X-Men) makes an appearance, but given he appears in anything these days, that's not helping much.

In fact the best character and acting is from Jason Connory, it is a really shame we really don't see more of him in bigger production features. As for the rest of the films quality, pacing is bad, the camera is all over the place and quite annoying and there are far too many over used reused aerial shots of Tijuana itself. The music/score is also all wrong though if you like your crime thrillers in the hood and think Little Big Toes is the next big rap sensation, then it might be to your liking.

For a film with the cast that it has (which also includes Armand Assante in a rather strange role) I'm really not sure how it could all go so horribly wrong. The film is slow, with little atmosphere and by the end you couldn't care less who kills who and why and just wish you'd been one of the casualties to save yourself from the running time.

The Sage's Rating: 4/10

I agree with the other viewers. This is not a great movie, not a masterpiece, but not a corny film either. The story is highly improbable, we can find many non sense in this feature, as in many other flicks of this kind. Large holes where a truck could pass through. There is not real lead, no hero in this tale. And that's what I like. No good guys who fight against bad ones. In fact, where are the good guys? I love that. And Ray Liotta plays here a desperate character as he was in PHOENIX, in 1999. And the ending is very similar to the Danny Cannon's film. A sort of mercenary who's in search of himself, in search of redemption. OK, we have seen that before too. But I always find this interesting.

A pretty good actioner.

If you can think of two semi-stars less likely to sell a movie than Ray Liotta and Andy Garcia, I don't know who they would be. The pair of writer-producers who put this mess together have an interview in the DVD extras where they pretentiously explain the thesis behind the themes and plot devices in this POS. Amazing that in the world of Hollywood, the jargonized baloney they spew is taken seriously enough for financiers to respond with film stock money.

Danny Trejo said it best in his interview: "What did I like best about making 'The Line'? Firing off that machine gun all morning, man!"

Nothing is this movie is not a cliché, incomplete, or just the wrong thing to do. Centering around a dying Mexican gangster's desire to turn over his business to a gang member not his son (why?), the new guy allows Al Qaeda to use drug transport routes to move weapons (why doesn't the old guy stop it?), and kill his son (again, why not stop it?) There are competing incompetent hit men trying to off the new guy (always failing) so the CIA gets involved. Vastly complicated and totally stoopid movie made with the usual tropes, only badly.

Oh, and by the way -- there is a rampant tendency these days to include a twist. This one bursts in with klaxons.

Right, this film is nicely shot, good characters has big names etc etc as everyone else has said, but.....

It has no plot... The plot is that the boss gets ill (but he isn't), so he hands his business to his 2nd in command and not his son. Queue power struggle between son and 2nd in command ending with son dead. Boss now reveals he isn't dying and kills second in command and the film ends. In between this Ray Liotta kills people, gets mugged and other people die, plus a couple of Afghani's pop up.... So, if he wanted them dead why not kill them in the first place using Ray Liotta (contract killer who he hired any way) for anonymity. Why go to the trouble of acting ill to go into all this farce, and I'm even guessing this as this isn't explained in the film, you're left guessing..... Those who say this is a character arty film blah blah are right but it's still a really bad and unfulfilling film. Those who compare it to "man on fire" are just wrong, that film rocks and Denzel rocks it, plus it has a plot...

So basically don't watch this, watch "man on fire" if you've already seen "man on fire" watch it again, it will be a better use of 95 minutes, in fact I may watch it again now :-)

Plus it's called "The Line", which is apparently the drug route from Mexico to the USA, but this film mentions it twice and the name has no bearing on it. It should have been called "Nasty confusing people in Tijuana"

Unstable Rene Pelon (nicely played with quiet intensity by Esai Morales) takes over running a Mexican drug cartel from the sick and dying Javier Salazar (a fine performance by Andy Garcia). Moreover, weary professional assassin Nick Shields (an excellent portrayal by Ray Liotta) is assigned to take Pelon out.

Director James Cotton relates the compelling and compelling story at a constant pace, offers a pleasingly seamy south-of-the-border atmosphere, and maintains a tough gritty tone throughout. R. Ellis Frazier's compact script not only delivers a few neat twists and turns, but also brings a certain soulful and wounded humanity to the majority of the characters that in turn gives this film a surprising amount of depth and poignancy.

The bang-up cast rates as another substantial asset: Valerie Cruz as sweet and helpful prostitute Olivia, Bruce Davison as the corrupt and cynical Anthony, Armand Assante as watchful priest Padre Antonio, Kevin Gage as rowdy good ol' boy Mario, Joe Morton as the no-nonsense Hodges, and Danny Trejo as the ruthless Mario. A real on the money movie.