With the capture of prominent Serbian war criminals Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosevic and the noose tightening around General Ratko Mladic, perhaps its time to look back at how cinema handled one of the longest, most brutal, European conflicts since WWII. Now some Serbs have always been the useful idiots of imperial tyranny; barbaric, reactionary patsies used by colonial powers to further ulterior motives and give the 'New World Order' an easy way in. After all; Kissenger, Rockerfella, Carrington, Sherman and Eagleburger's reconstruction, policy & economic development companies won more in the Balkans than the Bosnians, Croats, Serbs or Kosovars put together. Author David Icke's exceptionally detailed, and uncontested, analysis of the machinations at work before, during and after the war depicts a land and people divided & conquered by the 'New World Order' in an underhanded, protracted and sinister campaign that would scar the face of Eastern Europe for decades to come. Now almost every movie about the former Yugoslavia, 'Welcome To Sarajevo' and 'No Man's Land' being notable exceptions, has been saddled with contrived storylines or biased towards one side or another, and in that respect, some may argue 'Harrison's Flowers' is no different; though it still makes for an impressive, sobering shock-to-the-system that evokes memories of films like 'Salvador' and 'Reds'. Elie Chouraqui's adaptation of Isabel Ellson's 'Le Diable a l'Advantage' is an engrossing, well-paced melodrama, which offers an insight into the motivations of war correspondents, and how the best of them not only observe and inform; but challenge power to convey truths which help channel and define a moral imperative amongst the people. Set in 1991, award winning 'Newsweek' war photographer Harrison Lloyd; an excellent David Strathairn ('Good Night & Good Luck') is missing-presumed-dead on assignment in Yugoslavia, just as the fighting, initially dismissed as an insignificant flare up, takes an irreversible turn to all out civil war. Andie McDowell puts in the best performance of her career as Harrison's wife; Sarah who, convinced her husband is still alive, takes it upon herself to go to Croatia and into the notorious Vukovar region (site of an infamous Serb siege / massacre) to find him. With an all star cast which includes Brendan Gleason, Adrien Brodey, Elias Koteas and a then unknown Gerard Butler, 'Harrison's Flowers' is a film that pays tribute to those who trust to hope in the darkest of times. As commendably realistic in its depiction of urban warfare and man's descent into the abyss of bestial depravity, as it is in showing us the simple pleasures of family life and the importance of retaining one's dignity in the face of relentless provocation. Adrien Brody and Brendan Gleason put in naturalistic, instantaneously believable performances as a pair of gonzo journalists; the former justifiably embittered about the state of his industry, the latter surprisingly good humoured in spite of his surroundings. And though indebted to that old Hollywood staple genre: 'Woman-In-Peril', it also has shades of classic film noirs like 'The Third Man' and 'Rome, Open City', not the last word on that awful, pointless conflict by any stretch, but 'Harrison's Flowers' is an accomplished film depicting one woman's struggle for hope in the fog of war.