The Constant Gardener moves too slowly. The story is interesting (if a bit shallow in points), but I wanted a conspiracy thriller to move more quickly. Also, the key husband and wife relationship felt impossible to me. Maybe the book gave the depth which is hinted at, but skipped, in the movie.
John Le Carré wrote the book from which this movie was made. Le Carré made his name with cold war spy thrillers. While current events now would seem to point to Russia being worth watching still, we don’t have a simple enemy to use in movies anymore. In The Constant Gardener, global drug companies are asked to fill the “simply enemy” role, as environmental and ethical terrorists testing drugs on Kenyans without their consent. A bit much, although I’m sure there are elements of the caricature which ring true.
Africa — in this movie, Nairobi and (in one sequence) Sudan — shows as sunblasted landscape and human despair. The scenes in the rest of Europe, especially in London, are just overtly grey, damp, and gloomy.
Metacritic score of 82 shows why this is an Oscar candidate, I suppose. A faster pace, and I would have leaned towards a higher opinion of the movie.