Show of hands – who watches movies anymore?
We gave up on movies a long time ago. When you consistently watch crap movies, back-to-back-to-back, it tends to sour you on the whole industry. Not to mention, Hollywood is so woke now … we can’t stand it anymore.
So having a membership to a streaming service, like Netflix or whatever else is out there now – is out of the question. We probably went about 10 years without watching movies.
But when Kevin started his thrift-booth hobby and was out there hunting for treasure, i.e. merchandise, he started buying DVD’s for dirt cheap – like $.25 cent cheap – and now, as part of our Saturday date night, we pop a DVD in and watch a movie together.
We randomly choose – well – we ask Google to choose a number between 1 – 100 and that’s the movie we watch. There is really no rhyme or reason as to what movies Kevin buys, he either likes the actor, has heard something about it, it looks interesting, etc. … something sparks his interest and he buys it. I can’t say everything he chooses is a winner, (Be Cool for example – don’t waste your time), but it’s been fun to watch a movie now and again.
This past weekend we watched “Beyond Borders” (2003) with Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen. I won’t even insult your intelligence as to why this movie caught his attention.
(Starts w/ A and ends with J)
Here is the trailer:
You know how some movies you see the trailer and it’s the best part of the movie? This is the opposite. The trailer only tells a small portion of the story. It makes it sound like she follows Owen around, trying to keep him out of trouble.
Not true.
Without giving away any spoilers …
The story opens at a charity shin-dig – everyone is dressed to the nines and they are honoring Jolie’s character’s future father-in-law for the work he’s done with this charity he’s involved with, owns, whatever.
Owen crashes the shindig with a half-starved Ethiopian child. (I could be wrong on the nationality). Owen goes on a rampage about how the money from the charity hasn’t made it to their area and 30-some odd people are dying on a daily basis from starvation, disease, etc. The charity is for show and not actually helping the very people it claims to help.
(Sound familiar? *cough-Goodwill-cough*)
Innocent Jolie, who is engaged to be married soon, (or she’s newly married, not sure), is shocked. Owen’s rampage red pills her and suddenly, she finds her conscience. She sees the room full of stuffy, overdressed people for who they really are – fake, money-hungry a-holes.
(For those that don’t know what red pilled means: Red-pilled refers to the idea of becoming aware of a deeper truth about reality, often associated with adopting far-right beliefs or skepticism towards mainstream ideologies. The term originates from the film “The Matrix,” where taking the red pill symbolizes choosing to see the truth rather than remaining in comfortable ignorance.)
Jolie can’t stop thinking about Owen’s claims. She’s been sheltered/pampered her entire life and can it really be possible there are people who are misused and starving across the world?
She decides to donate a large portion of her money to this charity. In addition, she wants to help deliver the gift in person so she can see the state of things for herself.
Also – she doesn’t know it yet, but she would like to see Owen again, too.
She arrives in Africa with the convoy of food, supplies, medicine that she has donated and soon discovers that Owen wasn’t only telling the truth, it’s much worse than she thought it could be. People are literally dying on the road to camps that offer slightly more support than they would get on their own. The level of corruption is off the charts and a lot of what’s donated ends up getting stolen by the government.
So – not only are the charities not donating as much as they claim they are pocketing the money given to them by kind-hearted people, but what makes it to the countries that need this help ends up getting stolen from them so the people who need this help get nothing but meager left overs. Definitely not enough to feed/aid the thousands of people who need it – hence the reason 30 + people die every day.
Sparks fly between Jolie and Owen but Jolie is married – nothing happens between them. But Jolie returns home a new woman and she becomes involved in the UN to try and facilitate help for the people who need it. She saw, with her own eyes, the overwhelming need these desperate people need.
Time marches on and Jolie has a son with her husband. A friend of Owen reaches out to her to beg her help and thinks her UN title will help move things along and they can get the help they need. Jolie agrees and she goes back to yet another war-torn country of starving people to try and help. She meets back up with Owen and sparks fly, but so do the bullets.
Jolie and Owen figure out they have feelings for each other but not only is Jolie married to another man with a child, Owen doesn’t want to put her in harm’s way as his way of life is nothing but danger and desperation.
Everyone he cares about dies.
Jolie is sent back home and resumes life with her husband once more. But she continues to write letters to Owen and worries about his safety.
Jolie’s sister, who is a well-known and connected journalist, gives a message to Jolie – Owen is missing. No one knows where he is or if he’s dead or alive. Jolie makes the decision to look for him and is determined to find out what happened to him and/or bring him home to safety.
And this is where I will have to stop summarizing the story because if I continue, it will contain spoilers.
Now, let’s turn our attention to the story behind the glam and glitz.
My Take
The war-torn countries and starving people brought tears to my eyes. Not only because it’s mind-boggling that humans can destroy other humans so effortlessly, though there’s that aspect of it, but because this stuff really happens. IS STILL HAPPENING.
And yet, we have spoiled brats here in America touting how awful, racist, blahblahblah our country is. How oppressed they are. How America has somehow taken women’s right away … though when pressed, no one can actually list one right that has been taken away. It’s gross and disgusting that we have clueless buffoons here at home saying these things when there are people L.I.T.E.R.A.L.L.Y DYING in impoverished and corrupt countries.
This is the part of the movie that struck me the most. Sure, throw in a love story to “soften” the horrific optics of people dying on the side of the road and becoming food for the animals, but the bottom line, this is a serious ongoing problem that no one talks about and avenues of help are corrupt and ineffective.
Why must humans treat other humans less than? I’ll never understand that mind set. In addition, I think it should be part of our educational curriculum to ship our young people over to countries like Africa to not only offer help but to see and understand that our lives in America? Not so bad.
I think making everyone not only travel outside of the US and help others less fortunate than us but to also step our of our comfort zone by leaving the US will remind everyone how blessed our country truly is. Doing this would foster and cultivate gratitude to our country and Constitution but it would also,, hopefully, teach compassion and empathy for our fellow humans. It’s so easy to preach inequality when you’ve never known a different way of life.
Our young people are so spoiled and it makes me sick. I’m not blaming our young people, per se, they were brought up and taught to think that way, but I suppose the bigger question is, how do we teach people that the world is soooo much bigger than one’s safe little bubble?
What Others Thought
This movie really made me angry. I like Angelina Jolie(a LOT), but this just freaked me out. Although the movie was trying to be critical and objective it was just boring. Oh the drama! Helping poor and sick people is so noble… This movie wasn’t about being an eye-opener, it was something else.
No, this movie most likely made this person uncomfortable because it’s not fun to have reality slap you in the face. The person does go on to say that he/she thought the movie was set up to make Jolie look like a good person, though I disagree with that, it does raise an interesting point – was this the movie that served as the catalyst that prompted Jolie to become more involved with third-world country needs, helping starving children, etc?
Let’s face it – we go to the cinemas to forget our problems and not be reminded of them which is precisely the reason why movies like these don’t make any money but others do. Most movies about injustice and persecution always have the good guys win in the end but this movie doesn’t. In fact, we’re introduced to the startling reality of the lives of volunteer workers and what they have to go through with all their good intentions in place. We are also introduced and/or reminded of the ugly side of humanity as to why certain countries will never be able to have peace because people are just too selfish fighting out their own agendas to spare any thought for another person.
I understand that movies, books, entertainment in general is set up to help us forget every day problems, however, we also need to be reminded that there is a whole world out there beyond our spoiled, entitled bubble. Facts aren’t always pretty, but they should never be ignored.
The filmmakers are highly critical of all those well-off people who merely pay lip service to helping Third World causes but who are really only concerned with salving their own guilty consciences (the film begins at one of those lavish fund raising dinners with everyone dressed to the nines and enjoying a sumptuous banquet while they’re giving one another awards for great humanitarian achievements for helping to eradicate poverty and hunger). Yet, by treating the material as if it were some sort of bourgeois romantic fantasy, the movie makers are, in many ways, doing the very same thing they accuse the elite snobs of doing – which is making misery palatable and easily digestible for the complacent, self-satisfied masses.
True – and a lot of people have criticized the movie for diluting the bigger issue, that there are people out there trapped under the thumb of a corrupt government and are helpless in providing even basic survival needs, however, it’s a start. It’s SOMETHING. It’s better than not showcasing these issues/problems at all. And let’s face it, if the producers hadn’t wrapped up this movie into “palatable and easily digestible” morsels for the masses to consume, no one would consume it all. People nowadays have the attention span of a gnat. And I’m always hopeful that people are not completely brain dead, that there would be enough people out there to see beyond the love overlay and recognize that these problems are horrific and continue to this day.
One last thing: there has also been criticism for Owen’s corruption by the end of the movie. I think this was a natural progression of Owen’s character. For it shows the lengths he went to in order to try and help as many people as he could. He started making deals in order get shipments of food and medicine. And the more he made deals, the more the lines of his good intentions blurred with the ugly darkness of greed and evil so by the end of the movie, Owen’s character was nearly unrecognizable.
My Rating: 8 / 10
Write From Karen 