Thanks for the memories!

Memorable, crazy movie

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Jack Nicholson does solid work in the role of Charlie Smith, a border patrol officer who moves from California to Texas. Saddled with a well meaning but materialistic wife, Marcy (Valerie Perrine), he realizes that his pocketbook can't keep up with her dreams, so he yields to corruption. This is also encouraged by his new neighbor / partner "Cat" (Harvey Keitel). Soon Charlie is taking pity on young mother Maria (Elpidia Carrillo). When her baby is stolen for the purpose of being sold on the black market, he gets involved in her plight.All of the actors here deliver rather under rated performances. With Nicholson, there's no theatricality, no eccentricity, just a good, straightforward, impassioned portrayal. Perrine plays the wife in such a way that you can't really hate her. Keitel is great as always as the shady partner, as is the sadly short lived Warren Oates, near the end of his life and career, as Charlies' new boss. Carrillo is lovely and extremely engaging, and one might wish that she'd had more opportunities in American film over the years. (Most people likely know her as the sole female character in "Predator".) There's a fair bunch of recognizable actors in supporting and bit parts: Shannon Wilcox, Jeff Morris, Dirk Blocker, Lonny Chapman, William Russ, Gary Grubbs, etc.The story, written by Deric Washburn, Walon Green, and David Freeman, is not a great one, but it is entertaining and involving enough to keep ones' attention. Vivid on location shooting is one asset, the sad depiction of the reality of dirt poor Mexicans is another. You can understand why some of these people want to see if their fortunes in the U.S. will be any better. It also benefits from having a main character who's not a squeaky clean, Dudley Do Right type, but is still a basically decent person who will NOT cross certain lines. Viewers will love the expansive widescreen photography and the lovely score by Ry Cooder.At a time when the issues of border policing and illegal aliens are very much on peoples' minds, this film does remain relevant.Seven out of 10.

To appreciate Jack Nicholson's work in "The Border" you have to take into account the time it was made. Nicholson was just coming off "The Shining" where his performance was universally mocked by the elites as ham boned. His turn here is the polar opposite of Jack Torrance. Nicholson plays a passive border guard submissively going along with a corrupt system until events force him to take a stand for what is right. The transformation of his character is subtle with few broad gestures or demonstratives.The story-line takes place in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico, in which there is the border between the two places (the Rio Grande river, more specifically). It deals a lot with the illegal immigration problem, and other issues that occurred at that time. The immigration issue still with us after all these years, but its hard to imagine a movie dealing with that issue in as thoughtful or morally complex a way as this one does being made today.I think the striking contrast between Charlie's air-headed Mary and the desperate and needy Maria needed to be further explored. As it was played Charlie is just a good Joe doing a good deed or two when in fact we know he is much more involved than that. I think the movie would have been improved by making him choose between the two women as he had to make the moral choice between going with the Cat's corruption or going against him. You gotta see this for Jack Nicholson, one of the great actors of our time, who brings subtlety and veracity to a role that could have been ordinary, while giving us only a hint of the commanding and irreverent style that he would adopt in later years.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

1982's "The Border" is clearly not a film classic and it certainly is not one of Jack's best, yet it's far from one of his worst films also. The theme and issue centers around illegal immigration which in 1982 this topic was being portrayed ahead of it's time, as anyone knows over the last several years the issue is a hot button topic. Again Jack Nicholson makes the film with his direct and straight performance. Nicholson is Charlie Smith a guy who's left the police force to become a border guard and in the meantime along with his gold digging and greedy wife(Valerie Perrine)Smith again reunites with a former friend a now ruthless guard(Harvey Keitel). Soon this is not what it appears to be as brought to life is the drug smuggling along the Rio Grande. Charlie must decide whether or not to cross the line as the whole department is running in a foul manner. Overall the action, suspense, and drama is good and Jack's performance made it a must see, as anything with Nicholson makes people pay attention to their screens.

This is a decent movie about a border patrol guy played by Jack Nicholson who lives in El Paso with his wife who is really spoiled and the but are friend's with Harvey Keitel and his wife but the weird thing was how there was this one guy who was older and ran some kind of illegal operation with the "wetbacks" and in once scene where Jack Nicholson was supposed to have checked the back of a van for illegals, he did not and there were some illegals planted there to make it seem like Jack didn't check the van and what happened after that was Jack vomiting but that was not all because there was this other part where Jack Nichoson was getting really mad at his nagging wife as he was trying to bbq at a party so there is a food fight and Jack Nicholson pushes the bbq grill into the swimming pool that his wife bought behind his back and that was apparently something that Jack really hated!!