La Linea - The Line (2009) Ray Liotta, Andy Garcia, Esai Morales, Armand Assante Movie Review

La Linea - The Line (2009)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Ray Liotta in La Linea - The Line (2009)

Crossing the Line

Mark Shields (Ray Liotta), a hitman for hire, is a troubled man, plagued by visions who gets hired to head down to Tijuana to eliminate Pelon (Esai Morales) the new head of a drugs cartel who is so violent he feels the need to visit Padre Antonio (Armand Assante) for confession on a daily basis. Whilst the Cartel was dealing in Cocaine things ran smoothly with little interference but with their focus starting to turn to middle eastern heroin it creates not only a power struggle within the cartel but leads to the US government trying to take action.

Expectations can arise from a variety of things when it comes to movies; maybe a short synopsis makes you think a certain thing or maybe it is the cast which leads you down a certain train of thought and to be honest a lot of time your expectations will be right. But once in a while a movie comes along and ends up not what you were expecting and to be honest not always in a good way. That is the case for me having watched "La Linea - The Line" as when I read the synopsis and saw the cast my expectations were one of a relatively straight forwards action movie with Ray Liotta playing a hitman.

Esai Morales in La Linea - The Line (2009)

But "La Linea - The Line" is not a straight forwards action movie as writer R. Ellis Frazier has put a lot of detail in to this movie when it comes to the various characters. And director James Cotten brings a fair bit or artistry to the directing with some nice cinematography and a slower, more deliberate pacing. But because of my expectations, which when you see a movie features Gary Daniels will naturally lead you to think action, the detail and the directing seemed at times out of place as this was not what I was expecting and in truth wanted.

So in the end "La Linea - The Line" became hard work because of it not being what I had expected. But truth be told I think even if I hadn't watched this with certain preconceived ideas I might still be writing it was hard work. At times that desire to be stylish combined with that deliberate pacing ended up too much for me as it started to overwhelm the telling of the story. I am sure those who are more in to the study of movie making will enjoy it more than those like me who watch to be entertained although I will say there are some surprisingly decent performances from the cast which help to make up for this.

What this all boils down to is that "La Linea - The Line" didn't do it for me for a variety of reasons but mostly because it wasn't the movie I had expected and in being more than I expected it became hard work.


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