In a role originally intended for Meg Ryan, Patricia Arquette plays Dr. Laura Bowman in director John Boorman's film of an American abroad in a strange country. It's 1988 and Laura is desperate to flee the United States and the memory of her husband and son's murders. Accompanied by her sister, Andy (Frances McDormand), she heads for Burma just as the peaceful protests against the country's military government take a more violent turn. Andy and the rest of their party flee in a hurry, but Laura
is forced to stay behind when she loses her passport. A former professor (Aung Ko) offers her guidance to the border of Thailand, where they both hope to make their escape. Boorman's scenes of action and violence are well-staged, but Arquette is not big enough to carry the film and her plight seems inconsequential next to that of the Burmese as the military begins its ruthless crackdown. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
In attempting to make its politics palatable as entertainment, the film has grafted them onto a boatload of Hollywood implausibilities whose excesses cripple believability.
This is a perennial favorite because of the scenery (it's set in Burma, shot in Malaysia), because of the strong heroine, and because of the mix of politics and adventure.
In place of the backstory on Laura Bowman we need to understand why this woman undertakes her dangerous odyssey, the script races forward with action sequences better suited to co-writer Alex Lasker's earlier Firefox.
In "Beyond Rangoon," sisters Laura(Patricia Arquette) and Andy(Frances McDormand) travel to Burma in 1988 to help Laura get over the murder of her husband and son. Sleepless one night, Laura stumbles across a pro-democracy protest led by Aung San Suu Kyi(Adelle Lutz). It is there that she has her passport
conveniently stolen and is forced to stay behind while Andy continues on to Thailand. While she waits to have a replacement passport made, Laura decides to do some sightseeing, enlisting U Aung Ko(U Aung Ko) to drive her.
If it is true that the road to mediocre films is built on good intentions, then "Beyond Rangoon" is a perfect example. Set at an important time in Burma's history and made at a time when not a lot of information was getting out due to the military junta's total control, then the movie serves a purpose to dramatize these events. However, by working in a highly contrived story that closely resembles an epic psychiatric session, it also manages to trivialize them at the same time. But the cinematography is very lovely. At any rate, it would not be until the documentary "Burma VJ" that we would get the clearest picture of what is going on inside Burma.
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