Storm

This movie reflects on a genocidal event of minimal interest in Hollywood: the victims were Bosnian Muslims, not Jews. Therefore, I suspect, the worthy Film Movement distribution company packages the little-known Storm on a DVD with yet another Oscar-winning short film about the Holocaust.

Storm has a German director, English-language dialogue much of the time, and multi-European production funds; it would appear to be primarily a made-for-international-TV movie. UK-based New Zealand-born Kerry Fox has to carry this docudrama about the trials and true tribulations of the U.N.'s International Court in The Hague. She's prosecuting a Serbian politico, a general charged with ethnic cleansing in Sarajevo.

When the key witness commits suicide, the prosecution needs to persuade another witness to testify, who's understandably hesitant to stand up in a man's world. Well played by Romanian Anamaria Marinca (4 Months ...), she's a bitterly repressed counterpoint for Fox's angrily aggressive female fighter and their joint battle for justice and the truth could have been an offbeat legal thriller.

Director Hans Christian Schmid highlights the docu more than the drama, possibly wary of slipping into feminist melodrama. That's probably too kind, giving him an excuse for presenting a depressing overview of bleak landscapes, blank courtrooms and unprincipled men on either side of the international law. He's paced his wordy screenplay too statically, punctuating it with boring longueurs in which legs walk and women stare woefully.

Fox is credible as a legal underling, working again with Stephen Dillane (as her boss). She's also in familiar territory geographically, having starred earlier in Welcome to Sarajevo. Her role should have been comparable with Roberts or Streep in legal mode, but the slow-paced monotone script deprives her of the chance to shine.

If someone in Hollywood can ever find a Jewish angle in Bosnia & Herzegovina, a better-received movie might get made about Balkan ethnic cleansing. A small consolation for this one was its Amnesty International award at the Berlin film fest.