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| Angelina Jolie DVD Review |
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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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Beyond Borders
(Paramount Home Entertainment)
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| DVD Release Date:
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March 23, 2004
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| Length:
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126 mins.
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| Rated:
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R
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| Format:
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Widescreen Version Enhanced fo 16:9 TVs
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| Audio:
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Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, French Dolby Surround, Spanish Dolby Surround
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| Subtitles:
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English Subtitles, Closed Captioned
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| Extras:
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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 Featurette
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Beyond Borders tanked at the Box Office. It isn't the first Angelina Jolie movie to do so, and it probably won't be the last. When are people going to learn that she isn't a box office draw? Sure she won an Academy Award, but so did Mira Sorvino. And, so did Marisa Tomei. You don't see them headlining too many movies, do you? Regardless of how I feel about Angelina Jolie's ability to carry a movie, Beyond Borders wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. But at the same time, it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been.
In the movie, Jolie plays Sarah Jordan, a woman who's world is forever changed when Nick Callahan (Clive Owen) literally crashes down the doors into her life. Nick is a doctor who works on a team providing relief in war-torn nations. However, Moved by his cause and his words (and probably more for the fact that he's not too difficult to look at), Sarah works to support his cause - and of course, they fall in love. But, Sarah isn't the only one in Nick's bed. He also shares it with the CIA. Anyways, they part ways and come together several times over the years, meeting in Africa, Vietnam and Chechnya. They share moments the joy and heartbreak - and then, Nick gets captured. So, Sarah tries to rescue him. And this was my biggest problem with the movie.
The movie was okay. But there was just too much that went unanswered. I would say that her relationship at home - she's married (not to Nick) with two children - wasn't really developed, so some of the decisions her character made really left me wondering. There's a scene where it's quite obvious that her husband is cheating on her - but it's never really explored beyond that. (I suspect the scene was only in there to make us forgive her when she cheats on him.) There's the moment where she leaves for Chechnya. She leaves without even telling her own kids. For a woman that's so passionate about bringing relief to children around the world, you'd think she'd be a bit more compassionate about her own. Forget the fact that we're expected to believe that she's just going to waltz into Chechnya and rescue this guy. Whatever. But, if you can navigate past these little plot holes, the movie isn't so terrible.
For special features, we get a commentary by director Martin Campbell and producer Lloyd Phillips. If you can sit through the movie again, this one isn't bad. For a couple of British guys, you'd expect it to be pretty dry and boring (sorry to any Brits out there) but it wasn't. For the most part, the two go over each scene, the locations, the performers. They mention tidbits like scenes needed CG, about Jolie insisting on playing the piano herself, about Noah Emmerich not losing weight for his role when he should have. If I had one complaint, it's that these two didn't really come off as the nicest guys. For example, when one character in the movie died, they referred to them becoming "horse meat". (Funny, but not nice.)
The behind-the-scenes featurette looks at different aspects of the film, most notably the locations, which were themselves another character in the movie. For some reason, the feature is divided into two parts - but I'm not sure why. They were okay - nothing too special. For the final two features, we get a look at the movie by the screenwriter, titled "The Writing of Beyond Borders" and a featurette on Angelina Jolie and her humanitarian work as a UN ambassador.
The movie had a decent story - but I felt that the filmmakers just didn't pull it off. The special features, if anything, provided the most insight as to why this movie failed (in the commentary, the director talks about glazing over certain plot points - like her relationship with her husband - which only hurt the movie) and what this movie could have been (Catherine Zeta-Jones was once attached to star in this movie with Kevin Costner costarring and Oliver Stone directing.) In the end, I can't help but wonder if this movie could have been better. I'll borrow a quote from IMDb to summarize this movie - "Good intentions, mediocre movie."
| The Movie: |
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4/10 |
| The Extras: |
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5.5/10 |
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Liam Cullin - Editor
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