Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's third feature Babel, which won the Cannes Film Festival Award Winner for Best Director in 2006, follows in the footsteps of his previous films Amores Perros and 21 Grams. It is an absorbing drama involving a series of stories linked by circumstance that play out over four different continents. Truly a plot that's global in scope.

The film begins in Morocco where a farmer purchases a gun for some money and the family goat. His young sons take a great interest in the rifle and are soon seeking out how far the gun can shoot.

Unfortunately, one of them decides to use a tourist bus in the valley below as target practice and a series of devastating series of events are triggered. An American tourist in the bus will become injured, the Moroccan family hunted, the American tourists' children have been taken by their nanny to a family reunion in Mexico and linked in a way which will later become apparent, a single father and his deaf Japanese daughter are coming to come to terms with their mother's death in Tokyo.

This is a fine engrossing cinematic experience, and one that reminds you that wherever you are in the world, you can be facing similar frustrations, similar feelings of being unjustly treated and asking why fate may be dealing you the hand that it has.

There are many times when you think Babel is a victory in cinematography or just a superb actors' film, since you wonder what message the director may be wanting to send out. Personally, I prefered Inarrittu's previous films both of which I felt were darker, less diffuse and more hard-hitting, but judging this film in comparison with the other two is slightly unfair since it is certainly better than a lot of fare available.

Babel is made for an audience that thinks and wants to see a present-day film which in terms of its drama and scope is an energizing and moving experience, with watchable actors like Gael Garcia Bernal and Brad Pitt giving strong performances together with unknown actors from other countries (such as those in the Moroccan cast) being equally good. Babel is an awesome experience that will certainly deserve any Globes or Oscars coming its way.