Welcome to Sarajevo (1997)

It's 1992 Sarajevo. Reporters are navigating the random everyday violence in the besieged city. Michael Henderson (Stephen Dillane) is a British ITN reporter. Jane Carson (Kerry Fox) and Annie McGee (Emily Lloyd) are the producers. Risto Bavic (Goran Visnjic) is their new fixer. Jimmy Flynn (Woody Harrelson) is the flashy hard-charging American reporter doing big stories. Michael starts doing stories on orphanages to shame the international community. He meets aid worker Nina (Marisa Tomei) who organizes an UN convoy to transport the orphans.This is more advocacy than story. The real situation is devastating and needs to be told. The movie needs a more compelling cohesive plot. Stephen Dillane is a solid character actor but he's not really a movie leading man. Woody Harrelson is not in this that much and Marisa Tomei is in it even less. There are harrowing things happening in this movie. It uses news footage. It compiles a dark picture but the story is not gripping enough.

This is a well-intended, opinionated movie by an important director, based on real events and supported by a solid script and production and an A-list of actors. As a fellow IMDb reviewer put it in a nutshell: "An important movie; wish more people would see it". And yet I totally disagree. The movie doesn't deliver and I think that only people should see it who completely draw a blank on the post-Jugoslav wars of the 1990ies and who are willing to head straight for the library to find out what really went on.The story is about a bunch of ITN reporters -- in actuality, British newscaster ITN played an important journalist role in the war -- in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo reporting on the early stages of the war. At the beginning of the movie we see a wedding taken under sniper fire and the bride's mother being killed. In reality, this incident is considered to be the starting point of the siege, although in reality a middle-aged man was killed, and it was a Muslim Bosniak shooting at a Serbian-Bosnia wedding (the movie never makes this clear).The movie then weaves its plot -- one of the ITN reporters takes pity on a young Bosniak orphan girl, smuggles her out to the UK and adopts her -- together with a tour d'horizon of the most salient events of the Bosnian war. The shooting at the wedding, the grenade shelling of the market, the cliff-side massacre, the concentration camps, the cello player of Sarajevo.I didn't get why the journalist had to formally adopt the girl as opposed to act as her warden.Overall, this movie will give you the impression that war is hell, which I presume it is, but it doesn't tell you much about that war in particular except visual impressions of cruelty.

Just to point out something, that previous comment that said that Muslims weren't the victims in this war, just to tell you, how can anyone know who was the victim and who wasn't? My father lost all of his family in this war, his younger sister was shot right in front of him. His mother died a painful death, today my father has no one to call and check on to, why? because NOT all, but most Serbs who fought the war didn't give a rat's ass if you were a Muslim child, youngster, or if you needed a cane to walk with, all they wanted is murder and believe me i had to witness all of that myself.To generally speak about this movie, i watched it just right now as we speak, and the movie qualifies to show you some of the brutal slaughters that happened during those tragical unbelievable years. You can ask any Bosnian Muslim about the war, and they won't talk about it. My best friend's older brother was 9 years old when he saw Serbian soldiers take his father to his own backyard, torturing him, and killing him in front of his very own child, and then people dare to say that the Serbs were the victims? still this day, my friend's brother has effects from that day, you look at his face and you know that there is something wrong.This isn't basically a movie review, this is MY side of the story on how it happened and on how no one seemed to care about hundreds of children dying each day because some stupid nonsense pricks decided to kill everyone just to have their own F'n independence, well all i can say is i take big Sh.. on your independence. This movie brought my friends to tears, those who don't know 1% about the war, and surely it will bring those who actually lived it. I voted it a 10 just because i am actually glad they show the real side of the war, and how WE were the F'n victims. Hate this comment or love it, i don't care, but at least i shared the truth of my opinion, and the truth of our war.

This film is about a group of journalist covering the news of the war in Sarajevo. They have decided to take the matter into their own hands as the West fails to do anything about it."Welcome to Sarajevo" is a striking, engaging and saddening drama. It is raw, brutal, and it evokes so much emotions in me. The usage of real documentary footage in the film enhances the realism and shock effect of the film. Indeed, it is hard to watch all the dead bodies on the roadside. And the United Nations spokesman saying there are thirteen places worse than Sarajevo provokes so much anger in me. The bureaucracy is scandalous and heinous. It is so hard to see lives lost, dreams shattered and cities destroyed. One of Flynn's lines about if the attacking side was reversed may well be right. Apart from raising awareness, sympathy, despair and anger, "Welcome to Sarajevo" also looks at ethical issues of who is to decide what is right for the people. "Welcome to Sarajevo" is engaging and well made. It deserves more attention than it is getting.