Director: Martin Campbell
This movie is the non-story of an American woman (Angelina Jolie as Sarah), living in London with an at-times unemployed British husband. Sarah falls for a passionate doctor's pitch for aid to war-time refugees in Africa and soon travels there with food she's used her savings to buy. Clive Owen plays Nick, the doctor, as a snarly wretch who thinks the "rich lady" expects too much of the truckloads of food she delivers to a refugee camp. "It'll last two or three days," someone says.
There's not much plot, and what there is is wholly predictable. Sarah falls for Nick and he for her, but they must be noble and send her home to the husband and child and him back to his relief work in war-torn locales. In Africa, Cambodia, Chechnya, the genuine suffering seems superficially thrown in as a backdrop for the rest of the soap opera that plays out.
The characters are wooden and Jolie stays incredibly well kept together, even as she stumbles to the ground amidst a hysterical crowd in dusty Ethiopia and slogs through the snow in Russia -- she looks and acts so pat it's hard to keep looking. The dialog is stilted, so it's hard to keep listening. The tyrannical locals who are greedy for incoming food and supplies are played as stereotypically cruel and mercenary.
"Beyond Borders" is well meant, maybe, but too exploitative of truly awful famine and suffering for romance's sake. And for my taste.
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