Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

BorderCross Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 24, 2018

'Bordercross' is currently only available in the 'Danny Trejo Double Feature release from Echo Bridge alongside 'Chavez Cage of Glory.'

Lorenzo Lamas stars as Danny Jackson, a hugely popular and successful fighter who is in the border town of Gomez, Texas to participate in a charity bout with another champion named Medina. In order to avoid bookies and other pre-fight dangers and distractions, he and his son Jamie (Connor Pryce) check into an out-of-the-way motel which is run by a couple of small-time crooks who kidnap Jamie without knowing that his father is a popular public figure. As Danny begins the frantic search for his son, who along with another girl is set to be sold into slavery, he comes to realize that the conspiracy runs much deeper and includes even the local police Captain, Garza (Carlos Compean).

BorderCross is a cut-rate feature made of a recycled story, flimsy production values, and bottom-rung acting. The film's pacing is a trouble point, too. It's slow but not meticulous, just unable to sort out the calculus of what it takes to make a movie flow with any kind of agreeable cadence. The film toys with an opportunity to explore the value of faith, but that narrative line falls flat. This is a dull, empty picture that doesn't even cut it as background noise.

BorderCross Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

BroderCross' 1080p image is unsurprisingly imperfect but is, on the whole, largely watchable. Noise spikes in various scenes, black levels are reduced in places, and banding is evident across numerous backgrounds. Those issues aside, details are fair, with modest textural intricacy and decent facial detail on display. Environments struggle to truly excel, whether a cruddy small-town motel or a dingy prison cell. Colors lack vitality and intensity but find enough essential saturation and prominence to carry the visuals.

BorderCross Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Echo Bridge has released BorderCross in a 5.1 lossless configuration, but the presentation does not take advantage of the added surround channels, maintaining an almost exclusively front end listen. Music lacks verve, effects are flat, and the film's low-rent production values carry over to the soundtrack, which is not particularly well engineered, dynamic, or able to offer more than the most simplistic baseline sound details. Gunfire heard in chapter 10 sounds like pop guns, lacking any kind of distinguishing characteristic. Dialogue at least presents with front-middle placement and decent clarity, though there's the occasional tinny vocal to be heard.

BorderCross Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of BorderCross contains no special features.

BorderCross Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

BorderCross is a flat, uninteresting story of a father in search of his missing son in small-town Texas. It's a film made on the cheap and stumbles through poor editing, insipid performances, dull music, and the list goes on. It's a shoddy production with little redeeming value. Echo Bridge's Blu-ray, which is currently only available in the two-film Danny Trejo Double Feature, features passable video, flat audio, and no extras. Skip it.