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Beyond BordersA film Oliver Stone was for a long time attached to, it's no wonder he bailed to make Alexander. Like a jigsaw with a dozen missing pieces, first-time screenwriter Caspian Tredwell-Owen's story has obviously been hacked about, be it by Stone or replacement director Martin Campbell. The result is a heartfelt effort that nevertheless comprehensively fails to engage the audience on any level beyond the rather straightforward act of gaining our sympathies for the Third World plights shown on screen.
The film begins as Dr Nick Callahan (Owen) gatecrashes a fund-raising event at a London hotel, informing the shocked onlookers just how little of their donated money is going to those its intended for. One woman, Sarah Jordan (Jolie), is shaken from her privileged stupor to the point where she decides to head to Ethiopia, accompanying a shipment of food she has paid for. There, she meets Callahan, and predictably he is frosty towards her good intentions. She, however, is stunned by the horrors of famine and vows to do more by joining the UN. As the film skips on in years, Sarah - in an unhappy marriage to a stockbroker (Roache) - finds she cannot forget Callahan or the poverty she has seen, and heads back to find him, to the detriment of her crumbling marriage.
Running around dirt tracks in a spotless white dress, Jolie - who, like her character, has joined the UN as a result of the film to become a Goodwill Ambassador - is made to look faintly ridiculous as the innocent abroad. Owen, in a role originally meant for Kevin Costner (an absence we must, at least, be thankful for), offers a robust turn, but even he cannot save this from descending into tiresome drivel by the end. The film's chief problem is not so much the affair that eventually sparks between the two leads, but the incredulous manner in which it comes about. With absolutely no time given to establishing Sarah's relationship with her husband, the London-set interludes feel entirely contrived - making her infrequent jaunts abroad to find the dashing doctor hilarious.
Directed hastily by Campbell, he attempts to paper over the gaping cracks with a few taut action sequences - such as a tense moment with a child holding a grenade during the Cambodia scenes - but even these feel more akin to his work on Vertical Limit than The Mask Of Zorro. With a pompous James Horner score to boot, Beyond Borders is beyond belief.
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