Borderland belongs to that variety of films that takes its inspiration from 2019’s Joker, which many believe set the trend. Joker itself is actually a flashy remake of Martin Scorsese’s 1982 The King of Comedy, a more singular and insidious picture, and Borderland’s template, down to characters resembling those in the original.
Let’s call the genre Batsh*t Crazy Fan Stalks Celebrity. Paul (Ray Nicholson) is obsessed with pop superstar Sofia (Samara Weaving), who is unaware of him. Ray has deluded himself into thinking she loves him, too. With his ragtag pair of degenerates (Alba Baptista and David Jaycox), Paul invades her toney mansion, gets past her significant other, Rhodes (Jimmie Fails), and her erstwhile bodyguard, Bell (Eric Dane), and holds her hostage in anticipation of their wedding. Hilarity and bloodshed ensue.
Ms. Weaving and Mr. Nicholson throw themselves into the mayhem. As the self-absorbed Sofia, she acts convincingly abashed, then defiant of Ray’s advances. As Ray, he’s over the top. He preens and mugs and laughs through the tears and tears through the laughs. After Borderline, Mr. Nicholson will never have to audition for a part again. Ray runs the gamut of outsized emotions while made up to look like King’s Rupert Pupkin. His henchperson, Penny (Alba Baptista), is his Sandra Bernhard. Oddly, Ms. Weaving herself resembles Margot Robie, who is oddly listed as Borderline’s executive producer. (I’m so dizzy).
Jimmie Fails of Nichol Boys underplays as Rhodes, Sofia’s BF, and the film’s only dimensional character. Eric Dane is the sturdy center of the storm. Bell is a father, after all. He has an eight-year-old daughter who is systemically abused in the film and winds up comically covered in blood. Batsh*t crazy is funny, right? Are you not entertained?
Borderline is clever, kinetic, and full of energized performances. It’s also joyless and pointlessly sadistic. I’m no stranger to film violence, but even for me, the carnage was a bit much. We get stabbings, crushed bones, squashed heads (and that’s in just the first 20 minutes), followed by a strangling, a character (begging to be) set on fire, and another drowned (in holy water, no less, which implies Borderline has an attitude. It doesn’t. It’s just blithely blasphemous. In one scene, a character asks Ray about a kidnapping victim. “You put a priest in a box?” they ask. “No, I put a pastor in a box. We’re Protestant.”)
Borderline is the directorial debut of Jimmy Warden, the guy who wrote Cocaine Bear, so I suppose chaos is a given. He halfheartedly implies depth, including some metaphorical stuff about puzzles, which comes to nothing. He plays with time, Tarantino-style, messing with the chronology so that it feels like we walked into the middle of a movie with no beginning or end. The jaunty absurdist score, bordering on oom-pah, is an attempt to make the bloodbath zany.
Why is the movie called Borderline? Well, it might have to do with borderline personality disorder, or it might just be derived from the cover version of Madonna’s hit, one of the plethora of pop tunes included to tell us how to feel. Question: How does one put out a movie about a crazed lunatic and call it, nondescriptly, “Borderline”? It’s indicative of the creative laziness that infects the film. It’s gratuitous, but then everything about Borderline is gratuitous. It’s all about shock, but very little awe.
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Borderline. Directed by Paul Warden. 2025. From Magnet Releasing. Runtime 95 minutes.