Tears of the Sun

Hmmm...where do I start? Should I point out to a recent reviewer, who sarcastically pointed out that Nigeria has an air force and could have bombed the group fleeing through the jungle, that the "bad guys" are rebels, not government forces? Since the rebels just killed everyone in the President's family, they probably scared off the government pilots, too. (Sorry...couldn't resist.)

And since when was a movie so horribly, horribly bad because it couldn't be filmed in the actual location? So what if this was filmed somewhere other than Nigeria? And so what if the music was not "authentic Nigerian music"? I don't remember a title card at the beginning of the movies saying it's a National Geographic documentary.

This is a good movie. Less action than many war movies and less thought than some political dramas. There are good and bad people of all races. There's tension and there are explosions and gunfire. There is ample opportunity to reflect on what mankind is capable of doing to each other for political reasons.

Give it a chance and I think you'll enjoy it. Better yet, I think you'll be sombered by it.

Antoine Fuqua's Tears Of The Sun is a brutal, tough war machine of a flick in the tradition of the old 70's war films, kind of like a brooding Dirty Dozen. Bruce Willis stoically heads up a team of special ops soldiers who are sent into a war torn region of Africa to rescue a doctor (Monica Belucci) from a missionary camp. Genocidal maniacs are encroaching into the area and it's no longer safe for locals or relief workers. His orders are simple: locate and extract the doctor, and no one else. However, when he comes face to face with the refugees, and their situation, he simply can't find it in himself to turn his back on them when he can do something to help. He then disobeys his orders, collects both his team, Bellucci and the Africans and makes a run through the jungle for diplomatic protected soil. His team are a grizzled band of warriors, each with their own unique qualities and opinion on his decision. Kelly (a badass, mohawk adorned Johnny Messner) believes it's too much of a risk, and not their concern). Michael 'Slo' Slowenski (Nick Chinlund, excellent and understated) takes a compasionate standpoint. Second in command Red Atkins (Cole Hauser) trusts Willis is making the right call. Soon they are pursued by the extremists, led by a hulking Peter Mensah, before King Leonidas kicked him into the Sarlak pit. The combat scenes are hard hitting, seemingly very well rehearsed and researched. The only problem for me was the overbearing and extended sequences of genocide, which are harrowing and quite tough to watch. When it's combat based it's a damn fine piece, with a rugged, thoughtful band of heroes who are an absolute joy to see in action. Rounding out the team are Eamonn Walker, Charles Ingram, Paul Francis, Chad Smith and a briefly seen Tom Skerritt as Willis's commanding officer. Tough, muscular and no nonsense, with burgeoning compassion that gives that soldiers purpouse beyond the cold lethality of the mission. Fuqua has a terrific collection of lean and mean action flicks under his belt, and this is one of the best.

'Tears of the Sun' is a movie with a message and an interesting first hour, but contains too many Hollywood clichés to really be something. We start with Lieutenant Waters (Bruce Willis) and his team of SEALS who have to rescue Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), a priest and two nuns from a missionary post in Nigeria where murdering rebels are about to arrive. The priest and the nuns want to stay, Kendricks only wants to come if the Nigerian refugees can come too. Waters agrees only to leave them behind as soon as Kendricks is on the helicopter. Then, from the helicopter, he witnesses the result of rebels passing by and in an instant he disobeys his orders and turns the helicopter around.

This is the point where the best part of the movie begins. Waters and his team are on their own now, leading the refugees to the border of Cameroon. The way his team not always agrees with his decisions but how they are loyal anyway is one of the interesting things here. Another is the way the movie dares to show the rebels and their actions, things we see parts of on the news in places like Liberia and Sudan. It gives us an impression how hopeless the situation is in some parts of Africa. The distraction here comes from Kendricks who is an obvious Hollywood plot device. She is the possible love interest, or at least the needed female character, and she must annoy Waters by constantly suggesting things that even to her must sound stupid when followed by a lot of rebels. Never mind.

Then the third act starts and the movie fails to deliver what it kind of promised before. Instead of following the dramatic path it changes into the kind of action film Hollywood likes to produce. A lot of gunfire, explosions and bodies flying through the air. That's too bad since an earlier action sequence was able to show both the horrific actions of the rebels and the trained and nuanced way of SEALS dealing with a situation. During that sequence I felt a director (Antoine Fuqua) doing his job the right way, making the movie very intense. He did the same thing for the excellent 'Training Day' from the year before. His third act of 'Tears of the Sun' was sort of like an introduction to his real Hollywood adventure, 'King Arthur'.

Not sure why this one is so poorly rated and reviewed. I understand that Bruce Willis, like Nicholas Cage, seems to be known more for quantity than quality these days but this one is a good display of his persona. The story of soldier and US team designated to extract Monica Belluci from war torn Nigeria. The problems intensify when she refuses to leave without a group of her helpers and patients she knows will be slaughtered by the opposing forces when they attack. Belluci is very good. Willis is in top form. This film is Directed by Anton Fuqua, so you know it is intense and filled with realistic action. There are some heartbreaking moments in this one. I did enjoy it.

The world we live in is a dangerous, unstable place, and nowhere is this more evident than in Africa, the place where many things of our world, AIDS included, are said to originate. Indeed, about the only thing that cannot be found in Africa is oil, which makes American interest in the region difficult to imagine, leave alone explain. So when we are presented with a story about a war in Africa, it only stands to reason that we must ask exactly why we see American soldiers.

Bruce Willis gives a delightfully underacted performance as the leader of an infantry unit sent to retrieve a handful of American citizens. Things get complicated when the primary objective refuses to leave without dozens of her patients. Instead of simply escorting one woman to safe territory, the party winds up in a race to the Cameroon border with one substantial territorial force in pursuit. Exactly why this force pursues them, we don't know until the climactic battles are about to take place, but it works.

Indeed, the actors here are not even noticeable, excepting maybe Tom Skerritt, who looks as if he spent his salary on diet pills. Instead, the sumptuous locations and cinematography, along with the action, are the stars of this film. This is a good old-fashioned action film, in spite of its very relevant story. What makes it stand out is that instead of modern action where nobody can see enough of what is going on for it to matter or make sense, we get our action scenes the old fashioned way. Blood spurts, detailed shots of the guns going off, or weapons striking flesh, are a reality rather than a much lamented unfulfilled requisite.

There are some problems, but they are minor in the grand scheme of things. When one shows fighter planes dropping air-to-surface weapons, it is usually an idea to get those weapons right. Using air-to-air missiles to drop napalm, for example, is not on. At least the dire action films of the 1980s used weapons in a manner that was convincing. The believability of a commanding officer allowing such violations of orders is very difficult to imagine, to say the least. Then again, given that these minor lapses happen once or twice during a two-hour film, this can be overlooked.

I gave Tears Of The Sun a seven out of ten. It's not at the level of a Verhoeven action film, or even a Cameron action film. It is, on the other hand, a good piece of entertainment with a decent and human edge, with sequences that have been competently shot. Which puts it ahead of a lot of films on today's market already.