Linewatch (2008)

Linewatch: Directed by Kevin Bray. With Cuba Gooding Jr., Omari Hardwick, Evan Ross, Dean Norris. Dixon patrols the US/Mexican border. He’s recognized from years ago in an LA gang. The gang needs his help smuggling drugs across the border and holds his wife and daughter hostage.

“For some reason recently, I have become interested in Cuba Gooding Jr.u0026#39;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 – Iu0026#39;ve concluded that either he hasnu0026#39;t learned his lesson or simply doesnu0026#39;t care.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn 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 didnu0026#39;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.) u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut 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 – thereu0026#39;s only about enough story in this movie for a short film, not a feature-length movie.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eCuriously, 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.”