In \Beyond Borders"" Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen unite to bring stubborn and complementary characters together across national and class boundaries. The leads make the movie a strangely stirring and eye-opening journey through the harsh realities of humanitarian work.
""Beyond Borders"" begins at a charity ball in London in 1984. Nick Callahan (Owen) bursts through a sea of well-dressed and well-heeled London elite, knocking aside Sarah Jordan (Jolie) and taking the stage. Callahan carries with him a starving boy, with sunken eyes and every bone exposed. He blasts the rich crowd for spending their money on expensive champagne and food while his relief camp goes unfunded. Callahan's plea for humanitarian aid is met with mockery and his arrest.
While Callahan comes off as a desperate rebel, he manages to attract Jordan to his cause. Jordan uses her marriage to a wealthy young businessman to secure a shipment of aid to Ethiopia, where Callahan is stationed. Figuring she needs to get out of her posh environment, Jordan leads the shipment herself.
In the deserts of Ethiopia, her benevolent intentions are tested when she picks up a starving child. In the most shocking scene of ""Beyond Borders,"" Jordan rushes out to snatch a skeletal child from a staring vulture. The sickening part is that the adults all around the child ignore the scene. It is obvious that the vulture is far more powerful than the child.
Jordan brings the child and his wounded mother to a relief camp with a shipment of food and vaccines. She runs into Callahan again, who confronts her with a brash display of his domineering style and stubborn-to-a-fault personality. The two go back and forth in tensely-worded and vitriolic arguments, each questioning the others' intentions.
Soon Jordan retreats to her upper-class lifestyle and the comforts of Western living. By this time, her husband, Henry Bauford (Linus Roache) is out of a job and barely able to support Jordan. Coming home from work early one day, she catches Henry with another woman and admits that her marriage is all but over. To get out of her muddled life, Jordan goes on another humanitarian mission to Cambodia.
She finds Callahan again and the two are pitted against the Khmer Rouge in another exchange of arguments that puts Callahan on the defensive. It turns out that he was running guns to rebels, having been manipulated by a CIA operative. What started as a relief trip turns into a flight across the border when Callahan and his relief group overpower a group of Rouge soldiers.
Jordan and Callahan separate again, but not for long. They reunite one last time in the mountains of Chechnya in desperate circumstances. The nation is under attack by the Russians, Callahan has been kidnapped and Jordan is alone in her attempt to rescue him.
It is a great relief to see Jolie's character make it around the world for reasons other than acting as some character made of skin and guns like Lara Croft. This movie shows what she is capable of. It is her best performance since ""Girl, Interrupted.""
Meanwhile, Owen's portrayal of Callahan gives credit to his character's internal complications and intentions. Callahan is continually divided between helping people as quickly as possible and compromising his mission as a doctor.
""Beyond Borders"" makes fine use of the intensity the leads bring. Between Jordan's pragmatic idealism and Callahan's charisma, it is impossible to get around the screen presence of either. Owen and Jolie make their characters into martyrs instead of meddlers, making their sacrifice honest instead of heroic.
""Beyond Borders"" manages to balance two strong-willed central characters against shifting backgrounds. It never sanitizes the lives of the victims or humanitarians, showing destitution next to unceasing frustration. ""Beyond Borders"" never sermonizes but instead subtly reminds viewers of the suffering beyond their own.
