A cast full of cool actors (Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Armand Assante, Danny Trejo and Kevin Gage) does not make a cool movie. La Linea is evidence of that. A movie that starts by quoting a psalm, serves up nothing but genre clichés for 90 minutes (in a plot that is pretty hard to follow) and ends with an incredibly stupid surprise ending which doesn't make any sense at all. And everything is dedicated to the good people of Tijuana of course, where the movie takes place. Poor Tijuanans. The only thing good about La Linea is seeing Danny Trejo back in the role that he has played so many times before with enthusiasm: that of ugly henchman #2.

Right, this film is nicely shot, good characters has big names etc etc as everyone else has said, but.....It has no plot... The plot is that the boss gets ill (but he isn't), so he hands his business to his 2nd in command and not his son. Queue power struggle between son and 2nd in command ending with son dead. Boss now reveals he isn't dying and kills second in command and the film ends. In between this Ray Liotta kills people, gets mugged and other people die, plus a couple of Afghani's pop up.... So, if he wanted them dead why not kill them in the first place using Ray Liotta (contract killer who he hired any way) for anonymity. Why go to the trouble of acting ill to go into all this farce, and I'm even guessing this as this isn't explained in the film, you're left guessing..... Those who say this is a character arty film blah blah are right but it's still a really bad and unfulfilling film. Those who compare it to "man on fire" are just wrong, that film rocks and Denzel rocks it, plus it has a plot...So basically don't watch this, watch "man on fire" if you've already seen "man on fire" watch it again, it will be a better use of 95 minutes, in fact I may watch it again now :-)Plus it's called "The Line", which is apparently the drug route from Mexico to the USA, but this film mentions it twice and the name has no bearing on it. It should have been called "Nasty confusing people in Tijuana"

If you can think of two semi-stars less likely to sell a movie than Ray Liotta and Andy Garcia, I don't know who they would be. The pair of writer-producers who put this mess together have an interview in the DVD extras where they pretentiously explain the thesis behind the themes and plot devices in this POS. Amazing that in the world of Hollywood, the jargonized baloney they spew is taken seriously enough for financiers to respond with film stock money.Danny Trejo said it best in his interview: "What did I like best about making 'The Line'? Firing off that machine gun all morning, man!"Nothing is this movie is not a cliché, incomplete, or just the wrong thing to do. Centering around a dying Mexican gangster's desire to turn over his business to a gang member not his son (why?), the new guy allows Al Qaeda to use drug transport routes to move weapons (why doesn't the old guy stop it?), and kill his son (again, why not stop it?) There are competing incompetent hit men trying to off the new guy (always failing) so the CIA gets involved. Vastly complicated and totally stoopid movie made with the usual tropes, only badly.Oh, and by the way -- there is a rampant tendency these days to include a twist. This one bursts in with klaxons.

I'd never heard of this film at all but snapped it up when I saw the cast and read the back of the jacket. Suffice to say it didn't quite live up to expectations and once again proved the age old adage of 'don't judge a book (or a DVD) by its cover'. Watchable for the most part, this is a film that adds up at the end to a little bit less than the sum of all its parts. I guessed correctly that the director was pretty new to this game and I must say those behind the scenes did pretty well to secure Liotta, Garcia and Asante for this.In a nutshell, when the Taliban attempt to form an alliance with a powerful northern Mexican drug cartel, supplying drugs in exchange for being able to use their smuggling network, they attract the attention of US intelligence agencies and the covert ops heat is brought down on them (or so it appears). At the same time there's a power struggle for control of the cartel amongst the heirs apparent to the throne. Little is seen of officialdom and we are instead treated to local operatives/soldiers of fortune and their controllers south of the border.There is no shortage of violence, tempered by the character of Liotta, a man haunted and tormented by the female victim of a previous hit. Naturally he's seeking some kind of redemption which is nicely and conveniently laid out at the end of the film along with a twist that merely serves to undermine much of any credibility previously established throughout the rest of the film.The film is short of dialogue and any real character development, instead relying on visuals and the score to create atmosphere, set scenes and keep the story moving along, Some of the editing and camera work seems a bit attention deficit disorder orientated as well, with perhaps a time limit of a couple of seconds placed on any one shot. I didn't find it too much of a problem but I know that it's a major annoyance for some people.This film was let down badly both with the twist ending and the inclusion of a 'Taliban' plot, both of which were unnecessary and I thought damaging to the credibility of the rest of the film. Not only that, but after an hour and a half or so of portraying Tijuana as a seedy sh!th0le full of thugs, thieves, gangsters and hookers, the director had the audacity to insert a big 'what a wonderful place Tijuana is and what wonderful people live there' message just at the start of the closing credits. I thought this summed up the whole project quite well, not quite doing what the makers thought they were doing.Worth a look, but not a must see.