by Derek VanLeenen
Every now and then a movie comes out with a real ambition to not only entertain the audience but educate them as well. Beyond Borders is a movie that attempts that. It tries to educate the audience to the plight of the third world that many of us would turn off on television. Unfortunately, the movie leaves us confused with its message, and isn’t captivating enough to keep us thinking after we leave the theater.

Angelina Jolie plays Sarah Jordan, a wealthy American living in London. Her life is shattered when crisis doctor Nick Callahan (Clive Owen) makes a demonstration at a benefit dinner, involving a starving child. Sarah then decides to do something about what she has been impacted by and travels to Ethiopia to bring aid and her time. Sarah and Nick first clash but then find a newfound admiration for each other that leads to a 3-decade epic romance.

I liked parts of this movie. I think the scenes of tension in 3rd world countries were extremely gripping because they appealed to the humanity in each of us. One scene involving the Khmer Rouge and an infant had the audience gasping and screaming, which is something I haven’t seen a movie do with such effectiveness in a long time. Unfortunately the scenes are intertwined with horribly done ?family? scenes in London and a very weak, implausible love story. The only other character we actually care about in the movie (other than the ?victims?) is Sarah’s sister Charlotte (Teri Polo), who is the only one who makes her character the least bit interesting.

The love story in this movie was bad, very bad. So for the movie to want itself to be a love story, truly undermines what could have been made. Clive Owen is (in a word) boring, he plays his character with no real conviction, but rather a sort of obnoxious smugness. I am praying that the James Bond rumors surrounding him aren’t true. It seems that the idea supposedly given by the movie is a bit undermined by the fact that after the first trip, the only reason Sarah even goes to these countries is to get away from her husband and see “her” doctor. It’s a sort of love story in whcih one minute they hate each other and the next they can’t live without each other.

I think this movie could have been so much more. It could have been something really special had it changed its focus. The message of Beyond Borders was compromised many times by the fact that this was a love story with 3rd world elements, instead of a movie in which a life is changed by the suffering she has seen. Had the focus been different, a nice tie-in with an organization like Amnesty could have worked with the producers to bring a broader focus to the cause.

I really believe that Ms. Jolie’s heart was in the right place with this film. Unfortunately the producers compromised everything in order to attract audiences. A more effective film to get across what I think they wanted would have been maybe a documentary with Angelina Jolie showing real heartbreaking stories. I won’t lie, I was impacted coming out of the theater, and this might be a great movie to show people who have lead a “sheltered” life. But oh, another movie with such great potential to have such impact wasted by commercialism. Unfortunately Beyond Borders is beyond hope.

Derek VanLeenen

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