The Grand Master Linewatch had to be one of the most boring action movies I have seen. It certainly didn't look like it was going to be the greatest movie, but it had the potential to be a decent action movie.Cuba Gooding Jr. is Agent Michael Dixon of the US Border Patrol working on the US/Mexican border. Michael Dixon had a mysterious past he always wanted to leave behind which is under threat of being exposed by High Noon Gang member Cook (Malieek Straughter) following a shootout which leaves a fellow US Border Patrol agent dead. The High Noon Gang leader Kimo (Omari Hardwick) blackmails Dixon to help smuggle in a drug shipment following threats made to Dixon's family. Dixon must also stay ahead of fellow US Border patrol colleagues, including Warren Kane (Dean Norris).It's hard to believe Cuba Gooding Jr. was a quality actor once upon a time. Cuba Gooding Jr. also won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the arrogant yet charismatic football player Rod Tidwell in the Tom Cruise feel good movie Jerry Maguire (1996). Cuba Gooding Jr.'s career has been stuck in the doldrums for several years now and this movie has done his career no favours.It would be great to see Cuba Gooding Jr. make a comeback someday and drag his career out of the wilderness. If he stopped appearing in poor quality movies like this, then we may see him back in the limelight again.1/10.

Wizard-8 For some reason recently, I have become interested in Cuba Gooding Jr.'s present career, seeing how he has become box office poison and is now mostly stuck in doing straight-to-video movies. I was wondering if he had learned his lesson after doing those awful theatrical movies and was now picking better scripts (like Jean Claude Van Damme). After seeing several of his recent movies - including this one - I've concluded that either he hasn't learned his lesson or simply doesn't care.In fairness, there are a few good things about LINEWATCH. Though this had a low budget ($5 million), it at least looks decent. The cinematography is above average, and the production team chose existing locations that they didn't have to change yet look believable. Also, Gooding fits in this role better than a lot of his other movie roles (theatrical or otherwise.) But the rest of the movie is pretty much a bust, thanks to its screenplay and its direction. The screenplay clearly needed some more rewrites - its flaws start at the beginning, with the movie seemingly starting at chapter two instead of the beginning. Things do clear up eventually, but then the movie slows down almost to a halt - it takes more than 30 minutes into the movie before the conflict starts for the protagonist. The movie then continues its very slow crawl right up to the climatic scene - there's only about enough story in this movie for a short film, not a feature-length movie.Curiously, though, despite this slow pace, there are several instances where it seems that footage is missing, and it resulted that I was confused several times for several seconds each time as to what exactly happened. Though even if this seemingly missing footage was restored, it might not have helped the movie - it would have made the movie longer and possibly even more of an ordeal to sit through.

outdoorfreak1 I have just bought this flick this evening for a movie to watch as i am bored and the first impressions of the movie are very good, if you want action from the outset this is the one for you. The characters start off to be a bit boring but when the guy finds that there are 9 dead illegal immigrants coming into the US Gooding has the dangerous job of hunting down the gangsters that are smuggling them into the US. The film, if your watching on a Hi-Def is superb, not forgetting the audio, my laptop punches both of them that creates a really good feel to the film and hooks you right into it. There is an element of surprise added to the film, the producers have tried really hard to make a top flick this year and slightly just missed something out, maybe that it needs some one like George Clooney or Mark Harmon to be added to the cast as Gooding doesn't go that far into the character. Maybe that is just my opinion as I really do like George Clooney films. But overall ignoring the downside, look at the bright-side the flick is just supposed to be an action/crime drama nothing else it make the viewer think a bit more about what the plot is about.

David Tuck There's something about Stage 6 Productions, responsible for this under powered non-thrilling thriller, that baffles me. It appears to be an formerly successful actors graveyard. Remember after Jerry MacGuire , Cuba's future looked great, then he made Snow Dogs !?! He's made more bad choices than John Travolta, and thus he arrives in a Stage 6 produced vehicle ,following the likes of Val Kilmer and Stephen Dorf, into a sad straight to DVD waste of time.I can only guess that Stage 6 are great at getting DVD distribution deals. I can see it now, get a name; albeit one that's fallen on hard times, get the deal money up front; these films really can't cost more than $3/4 million[ FYI: none of that goes on the script].And keep shooting footage until you get 90 minutes of a story that 'CSI' would reject. Not just CSI, but CSI Miami.The story is so , ho hum, on screen I can't imagine what it looks like on paper.The opening ,lightly baited, hook of the movie shows a group of Mexicans killed in a truck .This solved by a subsidiary character, off screen , who then hands the information over to Cuba while pinned under a crashed quad bike bleeding to death. Most people would ask for help first, honestly blood everywhere, he never mentions it.The key to a good cheap move is a great idea and clever writing [ Reservoir Dogs, Juno, Sideway] not tired star and a script downloaded from the internet.