First half is great but falls flat in 2nd half, still recommended!

Rating: 5/10 (3 July 2012)

In the Land of Blood and Honey – CATCH IT (B-) Angelina Jolie selected the most controversial topic as her directorial debut. A movie about a Bosnian woman falling in love and revenging Serb soldier. From decades there have been many movies about World War I and especially World War II but we rarely see movies about Bosnia War or any war specifically involving Muslims as victims. The Bosnia War is one of the most prejudice wars against Muslims in recent history in which the world just stood there and watched it. They intervened but the damage was already done, Serbs with lesser quantity ruling the Muslim Bosnian territory. The first half of the movie is truly eyes opening it shows how Serbs attacked Bosnian houses, massacred their men and then took their woman to make them as their whores and camps workers. They humiliated the women in front of everyone and treat them as trash. It opens your eyes when you see the humility women have to suffered during the war, not only they lost their men, husbands, children but have to lived as Serbs sex slaves. As the first half is strong the second half is extremely week as it shifts its focus of the war to the love between Serb and the Bosnian woman. In most of the scenes we see them talking and just making love. Maybe Angelina Jolie didn't have much budget to capture the Bosnian movement to suppress the Serbs so she shot second part mostly indoors. Anyways it leads to a disappointing and dull ending. The performances by lead actors are commendable. Zana Marjanovic as the Bosnian woman is great, this role is really tough and required an actress who can pull off. She did a great a job in bold role like this. Goran Kostic as Serb soldier is good but I don't find him that good of an actor to be in lead. I think this made it more like an unattractive pairing and the chemistry is all right between them. On the whole, making a movie about such sensitive subject movie is commendable and I truly wised if Angelina Jolie made the second half as appealing as the first half. Still watch it to understand what Bosnia has gone through during its civil war.