Beyond Rangoon

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Beyond Rangoon ★★½ 1995 (R)

Sisters Laura (Arquette) and Andy (McDormand) Bowman travel to Burma to unwind, only to have political unrest and a repressive regime spoil the holiday. Dr. Laura (yeah, right) loses her passport and must flee from trigger-happy soldiers with a political dissident (Ko, a real-life exiled Burmese activist) who befriends her. The search for her passport soon becomes a imperiled trek of survival and self-discovery. Tense, well-crafted action sequences hint at a potential for excitement and intrigue; too bad Arquette isn't the least bit convincing. Filmed in Malaysia. 100m/C VHS . Patricia Arquette, Frances McDormand, Spalding Gray, U Aung Ko, Victor Slezak; D: John Boorman; W: Alex Lasker, Bill Rubenstein; C: John Seale; M: Hans Zimmer.