Mess of a film, missed opportunity (spoilers)

The film was a mess. There were too many unrealistic scenes for me to suspend my belief. Stereotyped characters were also rife and Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen's characters I found to be massively unlikeable. The acting may have been ok but was ruined by the directing, editing and the cinematographer. The numerous cuts of teary eyed stares were overdone and the writing was cringe worthy.

Some threads here are giving it a pass because of the subject matter, but let's get a little realistic, you can open your eyes by watching documentaries or the news.

Let's start with the opening scene, powerful message hey? From what I took from it was a stereotyped very unrealistic scene where the "hero" was just as nasty as those who he belittled. We saw a relief worker take an African child to the UK to make those who were funding his project refund it. Let's get a tad realistic, how did he get the child into the UK? Within minutes I have to suspend my belief. Let's put aside all the paperwork and preparation that would have gone into getting passports and visas for him, not to forget the immigration situation they would have encountered at Heathrow. But hey ho, they are at a function where they are honoring a major humanitarian who raises funds for Africa. Let's throw in stereotypes of them hiring a racist comedian, every white person (except the two white American women) were also racist. But the hero forces JoJo to do something against his will humiliating him. Then we have to suspend our belief further by the child not being dealt with by social services but thrown in with the adults and able to escape. Then our heartless hero gets released and immediately thinks about himself rather than have a thought for the child he apparently cared so much about.

Switch to the heroine who has such a pure heart, not even African dust and dirt can stick to her white safari suit. She is driven by stereotyped cold hearted african woman who has not seen anyone new to Africa since her compassion was numbed out of her. Queue the next scene you won't forget where our heroine rescues starving child about to be killed by a vulture. Our hero allows the newcomers entry into the camp threatening the deaths of all his patients (in his words). Now I can understand him caving in, but instead of isolating them because of the risk of infecting the camp, he throws all caution to the wind. Now our heroine is consuming valuable food, water and a private room so she can continue to help one child. Our heroine finds a perfectly tuned piano and plays angel music so our hero can fall in love with the VIP.

Back to London where our extremely wealthy futures dealer has been laid off because of black friday but wasn't a good enough dealer to be rehired elsewhere because of his name, he had to try and get an interview from some guy he heard about. Before anyone starts that it would be true. I worked in this industry during this time. The cull got rid of most of the underachievers, anyone who would have made his kind of money moved around on reputation alone.

Now our heroine is called to Cambodia and although she is working with the UN she processed and shipped everything on her own without the cover or help from other UN staff. Then when they are caught smuggling arms to the enemy, instead of our hero being shot, he is... um, spat on and let go minus the arms. Oh boy, the suspension is getting tiring now. Queue the stereotyped ugly bad teeth Khmer Rouge commander who is so tough, he can be overpowered by a doctor while his dimwitted soldiers stood by.

Back to London again, hubby gets a call from his sister in law who declines hubby's offer to pass on a message. Weird control freak hubby gets suspicious because every conversation that goes on between the two sisters must pass him? No, they have to be talking about a man his wife had an affair with rather than a work related item or even a personal female matter she needed to talk about.

By the time it got to the last war torned destination which we know is near Russia because of the vodka and black fluffy hats where I swear the jeep driver attempts to run over the entire town and instead of raping and killing our heroine (which is what our hero said would happen) they let them go. Finally in the middle of nowhere there is a red cross camp where no one can see or hear the shots fired or the jeep chase meters away. And she steps on a landmine or was it a anti tank mine considering the powerful blast that occurred.

But our heroine thinks nothing of her children as they were constantly discarded and decided ruining their lives with a letter and telling the little girl the man who she has loved all her life and depended on was not her dad. But her real dad, the most wonderful cherub in the world is coming to get her and don't worry if he gets into a fight, arrested and then forgets to come back, he is probably helping children more deserving than you, so enjoy your cardboard box and think yourself lucky. Queue more teary eyed close ups.