Beyond Borders

I was absolutely amazed by this film. It has changed my entire perspective on life. After seeing this I want to smack myself for every time that I've ever complained. Ever been depressed. Ever "suffered". I am very disappointed that Beyond Borders was not released in cinemas in my country, and did not do well worldwide. I think it could touch so many more lives like it did my own. I am so much more grateful for what I and everyone else in the Western world have/has. We have very little to worry and stress about. Our lives are so trivial and we need to understand just how lucky we are. On top of it being an amazingly meaningful movie, it has a very well developed storyline with excellent acting by both Angelina Jolie, Clive Owen and everyone else.

Please see this movie. It is wonderful and breathtaking and emotional and heartwarming and covers almost every other feeling you could have.

And if you are one of the people brave enough to do something about the situations discussed in the movie, I thank you so much, from one human to another.

I loved the movie because it opened my eyes to the world of relief work. It may not be accurate, but for some reason, it made me want to be a relief worker. I know that my work as one would not be a love a story, but what's important is that the movie showed me some characteristics about the line of work and its importance to third world countries. I also like the touch of Schumann music. He is my favorite composer. Jolie is a great actress, my favorite. I believe she held the film together. It is a delicate plot; I agree with others on that.

However, I did take note of the fact that the amount of money used to make the movie could have been more effective on third world countries if they were to buy food, medicine, and make better living environments. Yes that would have been more productive.

But I am still happy that they made the movie because it did touch a number of people. Even though I am 16 years old, I still do what I can by no longer spending money on superfulous items and saving what I have for the relief/aid program I am starting in my high school. So I must give credit to those involved in making the movie, because without it, I wouldn't be living the life I'm living. Not to make it sound like some sort of god, but I am proud of the effects that the movie brought into my life. I hope that it affected other people in the same way, both old and young.

I didn't even know about this movie until I chanced upon a trailer of it and then realised it hadn't even made it to the cinemas. I wondered why so I searched on IMDb, most comments are mixed but I reckoned I should give the movie a watch but couldn't get hold of the DVD until now. Only then did I know why it never made it to the box office nor even near any cinemas in certain countries.

Let's face it - we go to the cinemas to forget our problems and not be reminded of them which is precisely the reason why movies like these don't make any money but others do. Most movies about injustice and persecution always have the good guys win in the end but this movie doesn't. In fact, we're introduced to the startling reality of the lives of volunteer workers and what they have to go through with all their good intentions in place. We are also introduced and/or reminded of the ugly side of humanity as to why certain countries will never be able to have peace because people are just too selfish fighting out their own agendas to spare any thought for another person.

Clive Owen was superb in this movie and whilst I would've liked to see him paired up with Catherine-Zeta Jones (the original choice for the female lead), Angelina Jolie was pretty decent as well. It could've been worst coz the behind-the-scenes commentary said their original male lead was Kevin Costner. No offence but I don't think he would've pulled it off. He's too 'The Bodyguard' if you know what I mean.

The love story is just a sub-plot and was so subtly done and there are no mushy lovey-dovey sequences to make your eyes roll. It's just a simple story about two people bonded by their common passion but whilst one chooses to act it out whole-heartedly, the other keeps a silent but burning fire for it. Now, that's love!

One commentator here said that this movie doesn't do any justice for the refugees and the victims but I must say that no movie can. Even if you do visit these places to see for yourself what really goes on, you have a choice - you can leave whilst these people don't so unless you are in that exact same position, I think nobody should ever try to comment about it because it's something I don't think none of us in developed countries can ever truly understand. Besides, this movie is about the volunteer workers and what they have to go through and the love story between the two leads as the backdrop to distract us from the painful realities depicted in the movie. I don't really agree with some inaccurate plots in certain movies but I don't know the 110% truth about this movie so I just accept it and then find out more about it if I want to. It's something you can't expect from movies anyway coz movies are not supposed to educate but just to entertain and maybe enlighten us a little. You want a 100% accurate show, then go watch National Geographic.

All in all, the filmmakers of Beyond Borders deserve some credit for trying to tell a story different from the rest of the junk playing in the cinemas nowadays. Some of you might have felt they didn't really succeed but I still think they gave it their best shot. Now, you have to give them at least that!

I agree 98% with what Mentalcritic has to say about this film. I, too, felt that Jolie's character is quite selfish and though she did what she thought was the most helpful and self-sacrificing it was in fact pointless and irresponsible. There is, however, some good that comes of films like these.

The general public who would never know of the situations portrayed in the film are now introduced to a world they may never have known existed. I have been honored to serve overseas for aid purposes and was amazed when several friends(even those who know of my experience) would ask unbelievingly "The movie is a bit extreme. Things like that don't actually happen, right?" Sadly, what Beyond Borders showed us was the milder side of the world's human rights issues. It stimulates the humanitarian in an otherwise ignorant audience.

No one can accuse 'Beyond Borders' of not having its heart in the right place. After all, how many mainstream American movies so much as acknowledge the existence of starving people in the world, let alone make them the centerpiece of their stories? For its willingness to do that, the film deserves a certain amount of genuine praise. Unfortunately, having gone this far, the filmmakers then cheapen it all by pasting onto the film a corny, superficial love story more appropriate to a Harlequin Romance than an ostensibly serious social drama.

Angelina Jolie plays a United Nations relief worker who flits from one worldwide trouble spot to another - Africa, Cambodia, Chechnya - dispensing aid and carrying on an adulterous affair with a handsome field doctor (played by Clive Owen) whom she met several years earlier (the film takes place in the 1980's and '90's). It's a little hard to take seriously the extreme plight of these suffering people when Sarah and Nick are making goo-goo eyes at one another in between saving lives and delivering inspirational, we-are-the-world speeches. As with so many movies of this type, the put-upon, indigenous people become little more than extras in their own story, a mere backdrop for the trite personal drama occupying center stage. It's as if American audiences couldn't possibly find any interest or relevance in all this misery if we didn't have some well-fed, well-scrubbed white people serving as our guide to get us through it all. I'm sure that the last thing the people who made this movie intended was to in any way demean the incredible efforts done by relief workers around the world, yet that is exactly what they end up doing by forcing all this heartbreaking human tragedy through the funnel of a hackneyed love story.

The moments of highest interest come when we see the incredible amount of power politics that goes on even when it comes to delivering food and medicine to dying people - although the filmmakers don't always make those complicated logistics entirely clear for the lay audience. We often can't tell what exactly is happening on a socio political level that's preventing the aid from getting through. A little less time spent on the romance and a little more on the behind-the-scenes aspects of the story would have gone a long way towards redeeming the film. Unfortunately, there's something almost comical about the sight of Sarah and Nick, nattily dressed and perfectly coiffed, making passionate love amidst the rubble and ruin of war torn Chechnya.

Jolie and Owen turn in relatively lackluster performances, not entirely their fault given the stock characters they play and the bland dialogue they've been assigned to deliver. Jolie has one basic expression throughout - that of teary-eyed sympathy and concern - that wears awfully thin after awhile.

The filmmakers are highly critical of all those well-off people who merely pay lip service to helping Third World causes but who are really only concerned with salving their own guilty consciences (the film begins at one of those lavish fund raising dinners with everyone dressed to the nines and enjoying a sumptuous banquet while they're giving one another awards for great humanitarian achievements for helping to eradicate poverty and hunger). Yet, by treating the material as if it were some sort of bourgeois romantic fantasy, the movie makers are, in many ways, doing the very same thing they accuse the elite snobs of doing - which is making misery palatable and easily digestible for the complacent, self-satisfied masses.

'Beyond Borders' is, obviously, a labor of love for all those involved in its making. That is turns out to be a misfire of almost laughably bad proportions is, perhaps, the greatest tragedy of all.