Movie Review: The Constant Gardener

Warning! I'll probably say some spoiler-y things here, so if you haven't seen it and want to, stop reading...however, if you have seen it, please post a comment so I can see what you thought of it...

This movie...think Erin Brockovich meets The Bourne Identity, but without the fleshed-out character of the protagonist in the former and the excitement of the latter. However, it does sport the whistle-blowing and globe-trotting elements of these movies.

The theme of this movie is girl vs. Big Evil Enemy (a mega-pharmaceutical company) that turns into boy vs. Big Evil Enemy when girl meets an untimely death in struggle against Big Evil Enemy. The story does not employ a chronological narrative; it skips back and forth among a handful of timelines, and while this is an obvious effort to build up tension, it totally falls flat in that you can predict the ending before the movie is half-over. So, without the element of surprise, the story becomes a mere drawn-out display of the complete destruction of a do-gooding family fighting against the powers that be.

Finally, I just don't get the title. Sure, Ralph Fiennes' character fiddles around in his greenhouse occasionally, but it seems to have very little to do with the story. I can't even grasp a metaphorical purpose for the title, other than the characters' struggle to "weed out" the nasty folks who comprise the Big Evil Enemy???

As far as performances go, I really like both Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, and I think they did all they could with their scripts/storyline. And that's about the best thing I can say on that score. So...I definitely wouldn't spend time and money on this film, unless you really just want to be depressed for 2+ hours.