Pete's Review: Babel

Our recent trip to Marco Island gave Courtney and me the rare opportunity to see a movie in an actual theatre without having to pay for a babysitter. Naturally, we jumped at the chance to visit Marco Movies across from the Hilton where Courtney spent her days in CME training. Courtney decided it was time for what I call an "Important" movie which requires one of the following:

• An incredibly important life message
• An incredibly sad plot line and/or ending
• Disdain for Americans
• Subtitles

If you are looking for such fare, Babel is the movie for you. Plus it has Brad Pitt !! (Swoon!)

Structurally, Babel is nothing particularly original. To avoid retracing each of the film's intersecting "slice-of-life" vignettes, think "Traffic" (which coincidentally also meets almost all of the criteria for an Important movie) meets "Crash" (Important) in the desert. And not just one desert, this time, we get the desert in Mexico, Southern California and Morocco. Fans of "Traffic" will be happy to know that the intersection framework presented by "Babel" is, at times, easily as ridiculous and unbelievable.

In summary, two Americans go for a bus tour of the Moroccan desert to recover from the loss of one of their children when for no apparent reason some local pre-teens start shooting at the bus to prove they can. We soon discover that in their grief, they have decided to leave their two other children in the capable hands of their ostensibly undocumented housekeeper who proceeds to take the children with her to Mexico without so much as a note from their parents. Meanwhile, halfway around the globe, the daughter of the man who gave the gun to the man who sold the gun to the pre-teens' father is all messed up.

So why is this movie Important? Life lessons and subtitles aplenty:

• People are basically good folks everywhere (unless you are a fat, white, British tourist)
• Guns are bad everywhere
• Sex is important to teenagers (and apparently pre-teens) everywhere
• Death is bad everywhere
• Never leave your kids while you go out of the country if you are going to be riding in a bus in the Moroccan desert

All of that aside, the movie is very well acted and contains some breathtaking views of the Moroccan desert. The progression of the movie is a little sluggish at first; but, the dialog is fluid and provides ample opportunities for the actors to introduce the audience to their characters before anything really happens.

In general, I would wait for the DVD on this one.