WELCOME TO SARAJEVO

Welcome to Sarajevo is a fascinating, disturbing, and quite uneven fictional account of journalists along the front line, in the same tradition as Oliver Stone's Salvador.

Stephen Dillane plays Henderson, a British journalist who hangs with an international pack of ragtag reporters, including another Brit, played by Kerry Fox, and a brash and cocky American (of course) played by Woody Harrelson.

However, the film is not really a character study of these people, as it is more a portrait of a city under siege. Actual news footage is blended in with the fictional story, to great and quite disturbing effect. Sarajevo almost comes across as an unflinching documentary for movie audiences; basically an in-your-face account of all of the brutality, violence, fear, and graphic gore that didn't make it to the mainstream TV news airwaves.

Framing the film is a surprisingly uninvolving plot about Henderson rescuing a young girl (Emira Nusevic) from the horrors of her home city, where she has lived all of her life in an orphanage. And though Marisa Tomei is on the cover of the film box, she actually only makes a short appearance as a sort of international rescue worker, shuttling orphaned children out of the danger zone to safe countries.

Making more of an impression is Goran Visnjic (who later was cast as hunky Dr. Kovac on TV's ER). Hired by the journalists as a translator and a driver in the war-torn city, he serves as the soul of the film. His character still manages to have warmth and compassion, despite the fact that his home country is being destroyed around him. In a way, it's too bad that the film didn't follow this character instead.

Not for the faint of heart, Welcome to Sarajevo is a graphic and brutal reminder of the destruction that humans can wreak upon not only far-off countries, but on their own people. As hard as it is to watch films like Sarajevo, I think they serve as an effective and important wake-up call to those who'd rather look away.