by SARAH ROWLAND

Whether she's screwing her fiancé's dad in Damage, mourning the death of her family in Blue or stuffing sweets down Johnny Depp's throat in Chocolat, Juliette Binoche is a pleasure to watch. With all the emotional depth in her eyes that Julia Roberts wishes she had, the Parisian beauty adds class to every film she's in. But not even Binoche can lift John Boorman's watered-down drama from mediocrity.

Inspired by Afrikaans poet Antjie Krog's account of Mandela's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation hearings, In My Country follows two polar-opposite journalists covering the trials. Samuel L. Jackson is Langston, an angry African American filing for The Washington Post. Binoche is Anna, an idealistic national radio reporter, working for South Africa' national broadcasting corporation. (For this role, the otherwise glamorous actress gets a CBC-style makeover, complete with a mousy brown dye-job, frumpy slacks and wire-rimmed glasses.)

As the media bus tours from township to township, the survivors of racial oppression recount how cops tortured the men by shocking their testicles, psychologically damaged the children by murdering their parents in front of them and violated the women on a regular basis by what is referred to as "political" rape." The deal is if the racist pigs can prove to their accusers that their heinous acts were "politically" motivated, then they are free from prosecution.

Not surprisingly, Langston sees the hearings as nothing more than a way for whites to get away with murder. Anna, of course, sees them as the only way her wounded countrymen can start the healing process. They're both right, and the film works hard to drive that message home. And in case you missed it, Anna's all-knowing recording engineer (Menzi "Ngubs" Ngubane) sums it up: "It's not all black and white."

Unfortunately, this type of pedantic moralizing is rampant throughout Ann Peacock's script. And between her oversimplified dialogue and Boorman's obvious symbolism (i.e. Anna and Langston's in-your-face love/hate relationship mirroring the conflict and reconciliation), In My Country lacks the kind of grit needed to match its subject matter. In fact, minus the powerful onscreen presence of the two leads, it's nothing more than a well-intentioned, nicely shot TV-movie of the week.

In My Country opens Friday, June 24

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