Borderline (2025)

Don't know why I'm still a nice guy, but I'm getting close to the borderline

Borderline is a rarity among 2020s comedy-thrillers: The rich people and their hangers-on are the good guys. Most of the recent entries in this approximate genre lane have started to run together: a smoothie of anti-elite, eat-the-rich satire. Here, the upper class aren’t Machiavellian monsters (see: The Menu, Ready or Not, Blink Twice, Opus, Get Out, and about fifty other cautionary fables of the past decade), but hapless victims. I’m not saying the capitalist upper crust needs any sympathy in 2025, but Borderline is fresh just by offering a different perspective.

But I’m not sure Borderline even needs a fresh sociological lens to stand out. This film has a kooky, demented energy — a tonal hairball of stalker thriller, gory comedy, and absurdist lark. It’s a movie that doesn’t quite know what it is, but in a way that makes me like it more. There are five or so jolts of strangeness in this 95 minute runtime that snap the film into life, not because the visuals do anything distinct, but because the story and cast are unafraid to take a swing. Debut director Jimmy Warden, also the writer, does not emerge unscathed, but he’s definitely got something cooking.

The film opens in the early ‘90s when Paul Duerson (Ray Nicholson) shows up at the front door of an LA mansion with flowers. It only takes a moment to become clear this fella ain’t right: He mistakes bodyguard Bell (Eric Dane) for pop star Sofia (Samara Weaving), and acts like they’re about to get married. When the encounter goes sour, Paul stabs Bell.

Flash forward a few months. Paul is in prison, but he busts out with the help of two accomplices: J.H. (Patrick Cox), a “friendly” helping hand, and Penny (Alba Baptista), an unstable lackey aroused by Paul’s delusional perception of reality. The trio break into Sofia’s mansion while she and her boyfriend Rhodes (Jimmie Fails) are hanging out. Paul means to coerce Sofia into a wedding that very night. Meanwhile, this happens to be the day that Bell is returning to work after his recovery from the stabbing, setting him on course to swoop in and save the day. The film goes in all sorts of zigzag directions from there, far from the obvious “Die Hard but in a swanky mansion” riff the setup promises. Nor does it devolve to outright lunacy: Borderline keeps things weirdly droll — never predictable but just restrained enough to operate within its own bizarre logic.

The script is, unfortunately, completely busted from a storytelling perspective. Borderline takes more than half an hour to get all its pieces moving, and the narrative never escalates so much as it cycles through a handful of ideas before arriving at its conclusion. There is no ratcheting of drama or tension, no act breaks or character development. Just a puckish sense of playfulness, a bucket of shapeless thrills and laughs. I suppose I should not be too surprised that story doesn’t hold together: Although this is Warden’s directorial debut, he has past writing credits, including Cocaine Bear, which I thought was quite bad.

Borderline’s tone is a strange but charming tangle. The film never fully commits to a consistent level of nastiness or satire, and I couldn’t tell you what, if any, creative mission statement drove Warden as he made this. It never sticks with one vibe — slapstick, slasher, sitcom — for more than a couple of scenes at a time. That tonal whiplash becomes a feature, not a bug, especially with a cast this game.

One highlight, maybe of the whole movie, is the mid-film interlude in which Penny, fully emerged at this point as a scene-stealing sexy sociopath, forces Sofia into singing a duet of Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” I’m always a sucker for unexpected musical moments, so it’s not really a surprise I dug this, but when the Baptista belts the first few lyrics, I actually gasped, and it only escalates from there. The next two scenes involve gasoline and a tambourine. It’s just a great, deranged moment.

Baptista is the incendiary revelation for me (in more ways than one), but she’s not the only highlight. Nicholson really carries the film as the psycho, and I will not be surprised to see him show up in a bunch of A24 films in the next few years. Weaving (who is married to Warden) continues to carve her niche as the absurdly pretty scream queen who is willing to be battered around and splattered with blood. Falls is great as a straight man who gets repeatedly debased. Dane doesn’t do much except scowl, but he’s the only lowlight.

If you come in expecting a polished gem or a muscular experience, Borderline will disappoint. But if you’d rather something swerve and surprise than tick like a Swiss watch, Borderline is a nice little treat. Even when it misses (and it often does), it’s never boring. It’s a dissonant but appealing debut for Jimmy Warden.

Is It Good?

Good (5/8)

---

Dan is the founder and head critic of The Goods. Follow Dan on Letterboxd. Join the Discord for updates and discussion.