Intermission: War, poverty provide poor backdrop for romance

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.

While the war du jour is the one on terrorism, there are other abstract battles that have all but been swept under the rug. The wars on poverty and hunger, the plight of millions of refugees and the trampling of human rights world-wide were all causes that once captured headlines and lead spots on TV news.

The film Beyond Borders at first seems to take the high road and promises to be a thought-provoking look at these problems. All too quickly it deteriorates into a soft-core romance novel that uses global human suffering as a mere backdrop for its two main characters passions.

She is trapped in a loveless marriage to a rich guy. He altruistically globe trots from one tragic scene of poverty to the next, trying by any means necessary to do some good. Until, of course, he hops on to the next disaster. The people who made this film should hang their heads in shame.

In real life, Angelina Jolie (who stars as Sarah Jordan) has just been appointed good-will ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. I think her heart is in the cause. Im just cynical enough, however, to wonder why the appointment came on the verge of the release of this film.

Sarah has recently wed Henry Bauford, a wealthy businessman. The couple is attending a gala fund-raiser when the affair is crashed by Dr. Nick Callahan (Clive Owen). Callahan has flown in from his work in Ethiopia and brings Jo Jo, a poor, undernourished Ethiopian child with him. He wants to show these people the hypocrisy of their ways. Hes arrested, of course, and Jo Jo is carted off by the authorities and later dies. So much for using a helpless kid to point out other folks hypocrisy.

Sarah, pampered all of her life, is touched by Nicks passionate conviction to his cause, and she is attracted to him because he looks like movie star Clive Owen. Sarah has an epiphany. She must go to Ethiopia and personally deliver truckloads of food to Nick at his refugee camp. Writing a check and letting professionals do the job wont do. She must do it herself.

Sarah shows up in the drought-stricken desert of Ethiopia wearing a white, angelic outfit. No dirt, no sweat, no grime. Sarah also is blessed with the uncanny ability to look extremely well lit in any circumstance. The clothes, the lighting, the make up and Jolies world famous lips really spell one thing: selfless worker for the poor.

She spends time in Ethiopia and works with the good doctor, but soon must return home.

The passion in her marriage is all but gone. No rich businessman can stir her desires like a globe-trotting, selfless physician who looks like Clive Owen.

A few years pass and she learns Nick has moved on to Cambodia. Its a different situation here.

Not only are Nick and his team dealing with poor, starving refugees, but with warring armies as well. Sarah simply must go. But shell need some new outfits. Hmmm. What goes well in a Southeast Asian jungle setting?

Things are rather brutal here and by this time Nick has taken to dealing with a nefarious CIA operative named Steiger. He feels he has to in order to gain much-needed money for his latest efforts. This second act of Beyond Borders climaxes in a squirmy scene wherein director Martin Campbell pulls out all of the stops, as well as a hand grenade pin, using an innocent baby to tug at our emotions.

After getting much closer to Nick against a backdrop of chaos, calamity, war and poverty (how romantic) Sarah flies back to the United States.

Jump a few years ahead and we see Sarah now has a second child, a little girl that is just old enough to have been born nine months after her return from Cambodia.

Word has it that the jet-setting relief doctor has moved on to Chechnya. I can almost hear him saying to his staff, Our work is done here. Lets move on! Did he solve the problems in Ethiopia and Cambodia or just give up and relocate? The movie never really makes it clear.

Chechnya is as bad as anyplace, plus its cold and snows a lot. Needless to say, Sarah decides to go and find her doctor.

The fashion choice is easy this time. Jet black goes great against the white snow and the fur hat she wears is equal to a good chunk of the gross national product of Chechnya.

Theres a major twist by Hollywood standards that ends the film. I wont give away what happens but will say in a better film it would have been more effective and emotional.

The subject at the heart of Beyond Borders is a serious one, and a serious film is waiting to be made. This film merely uses hunger, poverty and the plight of the displaced as a milieu for its soap-opera characters to conduct a torrid affair of forbidden love. What a shame.