Beyond Borders (Full Screen Edition)

WHILE ATTENDING A FUNDRAISING GALA, SARAH, A NAIVE, MARRIED AMERICAN SOCIALITE LIVING IN ENGLAND, WITNESSES A FIERY PLEADELIVERED BY DR NICK CALLAHAN. HIS PLEA MADE ON BEHALF OG IMPOVERISHED AFRICAN CHILDREN UNDER HIS CARE, TURNS HER LIFEUPSIDE DOWN. SHE ABANDONS HER LIFE TO WORK ALONGSIDE HIM.

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