Sometimes the relationship between therapist and patient goes beyond intimate.
Rating: 6/10
Running Time: 90 minutes
UK Certificate: 15
On DVD
Gina Gershon stars as Dr Lila Colletti, a psychiatrist who works with the criminally insane. Lila's life is not going well - she is divorcing her husband and is wholly devastated when he wins custody of their children. Lila's work is hard and sometimes dangerous, and it is also emotionally involving to the point that she struggles not to take it home with her. Her problems escalate after one of Lila's patients called Ed Baikman (Sean Patrick Flanery), a murderer who suffers from a borderline personality disorder, is released from the secure hospital while he is unable to differentiate between the doctor-client relationship and one that is more intimate.
Ed decides to help Lila by killing her ex-husband and his girlfriend in order to help Lila get her children back. However, when she realises what he has done, she is horrified. Ed cannot understand why she refuses to enter into a relationship with him - a relationship he delusionally believes they had when he was in the hospital - so he begins to implicate Lila in the killing of her husband. When even Lila's boyfriend, cop Macy Kobacek (Michael Biehn), no longer believes in her innocence she is arrested for the murders. Somehow she will have to prove what really happened before she faces a death sentence.
'Borderline' is a competent stalker thriller with few serious flaws, but it fails to live up to some of the better examples in this crowded genre. Genuine shocks are few and far between, and in general the plot contains few surprises. All of the cast struggle a little to inject real tension into the script, although Michael Biehn is the most outstanding in terms of making the most of the writing. Above-average execution saves this thriller from being a dud, but can't conceal the fact that the plot contains nothing that hasn't been done better before.
It's Got: A notable performance by Michael Biehn.
It Needs: Some real surprises to liven things up.
DVD Extras Only trailers with this basic single-disc release. DVD Extras Rating: 1/10
Summary
Competent but predictable stalker thriller - worth a watch but hardly the best of the genre.