Politics Kills the Thriller

The Constant Gardener [2], Focus Features' new thriller, plays like the grim, dour counterpart to this year's earlier globetrotting adventure film, Sahara [3]. Both films pit socially conscious heroes against rapacious corporations exploiting Africa's poor.

But while Sahara offered jocular summer escapism, Gardener is self-serious, solemn and intricate. Yet it suffers from an identity crisis—it is both a gripping, gritty thriller and a didactic, anti-corporate tract for government intervention and contrarian liberal activism.

Read the rest of the article at National Review Online. [4]