Review: Beyond Borders

Why save the world when Angelina Jolie can do it for you…and get laid at the same time?

Beyond Borders
Photo: Paramount Pictures

Nick Callahan (Clive Owen) crashes an AID Relief International party in order to make a group of art-loving rich people feel guilty about drinking champagne while his young Ethiopian sidekick goes hungry. If the man’s temper tantrum is seemingly misdirected, that’s because he’s really there to tug at society wife Sarah Jordan’s (Angelina Jolie) philanthropic heartstrings. In Ethiopia, Sarah gets to save a CGI child from a vulture, and for one banal hour it appears as if Martin Campbell’s dated Beyond Borders is halfway interested in illuminating the difficulties faced by relief workers in foreign countries.

But when Sarah makes her way back to London, it’s obvious that the film’s self-important first half is an apologia of sorts for the romantic burlesque that follows. Throughout the course of 126 grueling minutes, Jolie’s Carmen Sandiego travels to no less than three continents, and in between battling the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and helping Nick out of an explosive hostage situation in Chechnya, she spends several lonely years in London working for the U.N.

Considering the lack of attention given to her loveless marriage to Henry Bauford (Linus Roache), the filmmakers would have you believe that Sarah spends her non-relief time tinkling piano keys and making provocative statements like, “Perhaps we’re all refugees from something.” When Nick crashes the AID Relief International function, even he can’t tell if he’s making a cry for help or a cry for attention. Beyond Borders is mostly the latter. Instead of humanizing the nondescript victims of the film’s three featured nations, the filmmakers use the horrors of these people’s lives to get the attention of middle-aged housewives. Why save the world when Angelina Jolie can do it for you…and get laid at the same time?

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Score: 
 Cast: Angelina Jolie, Clive Owen, Teri Polo, Linus Roache, Noah Emmerich, Yorick van Wageningen, Timothy West, Kate Trotter  Director: Martin Campbell  Screenwriter: Caspian Tredwell-Owen  Distributor: Paramount Pictures  Running Time: 126 min  Rating: R  Year: 2003  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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