Cuba Gooding portrays a seemingly respectable cop whose shady past catches up with him, jeopardising his family and career. The concept may not be original, but Gooding's performance and reactions to some wretched and desperate conflicts serve to enhance the voyeuristic pleasure.The well developed, colourful and generally unsavoury characters surrounding the drug and people trafficking industry add grit to the realism and enhance our understanding of, and sympathy for, Dixon's predicament.Set against the harsh but stunning background of New Mexico's border country, superbly directed and acted, this is a cut above your average crime flick.

Linewatch surprised me heavily by not only being a competent drama, but engaging me and thrilling me at the same time. Don't expect a whole lot of action here, it's replaced by perfectly timed drama and thrills when they are needed. Cuba is clearly more interested in this project than most of his one's as of late, and it shows in his engrossing performance. The storyline to me is actually somewhat frightening. It's not really original but the way it was acted and the way it was done was just great. I must confess to not being overly familiar with Border Patrol but I enjoyed what I saw here very much, and it's much tougher than I expected. One of the scenes that really hit home for me is a Cuba dream sequence. Seeing him dreaming of his daughter picking up a gun and firing away definitely put a jolt into my system, it was very effective. Simply put it's not perfect, but if Cuba picks more quality projects like this in the future, his career may get back on track where it deserves to be, in the upper echelon of actors.Performances. Cuba Gooding is very effective here, and gives one of his finest performance I've seen him give in ages. He's clearly interested and trying 100%. He obviously thought a lot about the project, because his performance is terrific. Omari Hardwick is pretty good as the main villain Drake, he was effective. Sharon Leal is solid as Cuba's love interest and I enjoyed her chemistry with Cuba. Evan Ross showed why I thought so highly of him in Hilary Duff's Greta and delivers another excellent performance here. Dean Norris is a great character actor and he was excellent in his role here.Bottom line. I enjoyed Linewatch very much actually, and clapped when it was over because it's a relief to know Cuba hasn't given up. Don't let this one slip you by, it may surprise you like it did me.7/10

There's nothing sadder than watching an actor's career collapse especially when this person has given us the pleasure and the excitement that Cuba Gooding Jr brought to his role in Jerry Maguire. Actually, he was the only reason to see that whole contraption of a movie, the only actor that kept it (half) alive. But since then, he (and the audience, too) came from disappointment to disappointment, without ever taking a part or a movie worthy of his talent. And worst of all, when he starred in Radio and seemed to take the road of Tom Hanks toward virtuousness, honestly it was time to run out of the theater. But this new movie, Linewatch, could have been an interesting turn for him because it promised to be a muckraking drama in the wake of Tony Richardson's The Border. But none of the themes that are set in the first fifteen minutes of the movie are developed; we are waiting for the story to get new dimensions but this is helpless because the director, Kevin Bray, refuses to deliver if not great movie-making - at least the zinger we need to keep us awake. And we are waiting for Cuba to do something but even he must have realized that this was leading nowhere so by the end (which is ridiculous) he seems to have given up on this one like the audience.

It's a shame that some movies never get to the theaters. Lately, Cuba Gooding Jr. has been doing a lot of those movies, and though I haven't seen them all, I rent one from time to time: I think the man's a great actor. In Kevin Bray's "Linewatch", he gives a stand-out performance as Mike Dixon, a police officer who works for the border patrol and is suddenly haunted by the past. The actor is so subtle here, so committed to the role that we can't help desiring something better for him.Movies like this one are not sold properly for the audience. "On the border between the US and Mexico, the law is what you make it", reads the tagline of "Linewatch". It's logical that you would expect a bad film with something like that on its cover. Sadly, sometimes the truth is different, like in this case. The border is just scenery in this movie, a nice place to shoot and develop some plot lines of David W. Wardfield's screenplay.The script is about absolutely everything else, and though it doesn't develop its characters fully, it leaves a good taste in your mouth, and you feel you've watched something worthy of your time. The key however is in the casting, because when you have a slow film like this one with just a few action scenes, you need good actors to spend the rest of the time with. Sharon Leal is warm and caring as Dixon's wife and the girl who plays their daughter is especially good. The gangsters that come to bother Dixon and bring the past back with them all achieve good performances. Each of them is allowed to stand out from time to time, but they are at their best, natural and relaxed, when doing small talk as they guard Dixon's family.Two of them are probably the most important in terms of the story though: Kimo (Omari Hardwick) and Little Boy (Evan Ross). I haven't told you the hold story yet, partly because I want you to go and rent this picture (the only way to see it), and partly because the movie doesn't tell it either…I'll leave that for you to discover, saying only that it's a well developed plot for the genre that even leaves room for some small surprises.Kevin Bray does everything right and never poses for something that his movie isn't. He knows how to create true tension and achieves it in two crucial moments that don't include fast-paced action, helped by Jeff Mcllwain's exciting score (which, by the way, also works perfectly in the action sequences).The action is not the main attraction in "Linewatch" as it would be in, for example, "Taken". However, the fact that the leader of a gang bang doesn't completely look and act like we would assume a gangster would and some phrases that could be suppressed make this look like a B-movie. But then, "Taken" was also a B-movie (in the best sense and with the best production); and a good one. Maybe "Linewatch" is even better; a bit more humane…Realer.