The Constant Gardener.

The Constant Gardener is a story of fight and resiliency to end a drug war in Africa that is not doing justice and is killing innocent people. There is an enormous amount that goes on in this movie, and it is hard to pin point just one thing. I will focus on just one thing that happened at the end of the movie, that was relatively small and had a little of international business, but insurmountable impact and what I think the message of this story is meant to portray.

When Justin was in Sudan at the village it was over took by refugees. He wanted to save one young child, forgive me because I do not know how to spell his name, of the million out there. He tried to bribe the pilot with what was equivalent of 800 dollars to save a young childs life that is worth so much more. But, that is not how things are done in Africa. One does not take bribes, even if it is to save a child’s life. The pilot said that it is pointless to just save one when there are many more out there. These higher authority got into the citizens of Africa’s mind that they are pretty much useless and just a trial. One only looks out for themselves. At least that is the way the drug companies looked at them, that Africa had no potential. They wanted to test their drug there to get it approved, so they could make millions, even billions of dollars. But, what they were really doing was killing and murdering lives of innocent people with amazing potential.

Justins wife, Tessa, was on a mission to make things right amongst the drug companies in Africa and after her murder Justin took responsibility to pursue her dream. But, what I do not think Tessa understood was the extremely high risk she was putting herself in when entering Africa and this war against the drug companies. One thing one must always know when doing international business is the risks involved. This is because one you could risk your life, and you can also risk the relationship with your business partner.

In The Constant Gardener there were many examples of international business, and I just focused on a few. The drug companies act completely with no morals to Kenya and they act unethically, unjust. In this movie their motives are portrayed well and how they just want to make money and are not concerned with the well being of Africa.

4 thoughts on “The Constant Gardener.

  1. Taylor, I also watched The Constant Gardener and I am glad you mentioned this particular incident. You are right, although it took up an insignificant amount of time in the movie it gave a very clear image of how Africans view themselves as a result of all the turmoil that takes place there. It made me sad to see that some Africans now view themselves in a similar manner other countries do, that they see themselves as ‘disposable’. As an American it is hard for me to imagine not saving one life simply because there are so many other lives out there and saving that one life will have no positive impact.

  2. Sounds like a really intense movie chaps. I was wondering about when you were talking about the risks Tessa didn’t understand. Was this because the area was just extremely dangerous for everyone, or because Tessa was a woman going to a place that didn’t respect women like we do in America?

  3. I have to agree with you on everything that you said in that they are testing drugs on these people in foreign countries and for what, to make as much money as possible no matter if they are killing people in the process just trying to make a buck. The thing that is hard to believe is how some of the countries treat the people and how their ways work and is something that we normally would look at as wrong or think we should help but there is nothing we can do about it.

  4. We really are not used to looking at human life as not valuable, the way it is viewed by many of the actors in this movie. Think of all the shareholders of the pharma firms who would be horrified to know the kind of testing going on.

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