Beyond Borders

Romantic adventure, marital crisis, and the tragedy of global hunger are combined with mixed but respectable results in Beyond Borders, starring Angelina Jolie in a role that reflects her off-screen efforts as a United Nations goodwill ambassador. Jolie plays a naive American socialite, unhappily married and living in London, whose life is revolutionized when a passionate doctor (Clive Owen, replacing original costar Kevin Costner) draws her into the cause of humanitarian aid in the world's most dangerous political hot-spots including Ethiopia, Cambodia (where Jolie adopted her first child), and Chechnya in the 1980s and '90s. Directed by Martin (Goldeneye) Campbell, who replaced Oliver Stone during troubled pre-production, this well-meaning film suffers from schizophrenic priorities: Is it a globetrotting love story? An impassioned political exposé? Powerful scenes and fine performances can't entirely offset the film's identity crisis, and the ending strives for a quality of martyrdom that it doesn't really earn. --Jeff Shannon