Beyond Borders
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: 2003-10-24
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Clive Owen, Noah Emmerich, Teri Polo, Linus Roache
Director: Martin Campbell
WorkNameSort: Beyond Borders
Our Rating: 2.00
Thick-lipped sexpot Angelina Jolie plays a woman drawn into the plight of starving Ethiopians; former “Croupier” Clive Owen is the reality-hardened relief worker who shows her the ropes. These two have star quality to burn, and somebody really should write a proper movie for them. In the meantime, we’re stuck with this message-lite stinker, which tracks the pair’s nonstarter of a relationship across 11 years and three international crises. The episodic structure and gaps in logic quell any hope of a dramatic flow, and the overall atmosphere of strained solemnity is so all-fired boring that you welcome even the movie’s cheapest injections of sex and violence — including a Cambodian skirmish that’s choreographed like a bad dance number. Khmer Rouge, meet Moulin Rouge.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2003.