© Paramount Pictures

WERI CHANNEL presents BEYOND BORDERS

PARAMOUNT HOME VIDEO

Beyond the Borders of Good Storytelling By Jason Davis. A great concept is disastrously sabotaged by an inane script, insipid characters, and dialogue written to sound cool in a trailer. The DVD offers an adequate array of extras, but it’s unlikely the film will inspire much interest in them .

Caspian Tredwell-Owen

Sarah Bauford (Angelina Jolie), daughter-in-law of a wealthy Englishman who’s pulled funding for Ethiopian relief workers, is stirred to action by Nick Callahan (Clive Owen), a doctor who ruthlessly pursues any opportunity to save the lives of the disenfranchised. Sarah travels to Ethiopia where she witnesses first hand the conditions under which relief workers try to make a difference and dedicates her life to the cause.

Over the years, Sarah continues to abandon her family in favor of following Nick to various hostile locales where he tries to make a difference by any means necessary.In one of the film’s earliest scenes, Callahan invades a black-tie function recognizing Sarah’s father-in-law to present an emaciated Ethiopian child to the wealthy dining on their twenty quid meals. As he makes his speech, someone in his audience tosses a banana to the child.

This action elicits adolescent snickers from the entire assembly. Less than fifteen minutes into the story, all credibility is gone. It seems unlikely that this cruel  (a) act would be perpetrated in this circumstance by these people, and (b) if it did happen, the entire room would find it funny. The filmmakers have kindly informed the audience that “these rich people are bad.”Callahan has a tendency to utter cynical one-liners in a manner that suggests he’s waiting for someone to make a trailer about his harrowing exploits.

This is all well and good if you’re Indiana Jones or Han Solo in a piece of escapist adventure cinema, but the tone of the film makes Callahan seem like a flippant ass.Sarah is seen on no less than two occasions to abandon her children in order to go traipsing through war-torn hellholes that could easily claim her life. It’s a noble thing to endanger yourself for the forgotten masses in faraway lands, but let’s think about her responsibility to the people she brought into the world herself. Her trip to find Callahan in Cambodia almost plays like a booty call. This story could have been good, but it only succeeds in insulting its audience.

insipid characters

- Commentary by director Martin Campbell and producer Lloyd Phillips
- “Behind the Lines: The Making of Beyond Borders Parts 1 and 2″
- “The Writing of Beyond Borders: A Conversation with Screenwriter Caspian Tredwell- Owen”
- “Angelina: Goodwill Ambassador”

INTERVIEWS

Child Protection Beyond Borders