Tears of the Sun Movie Review:

As civil war grips Nigeria, a US Navy S.E.A.L. team commanded by Lt. Waters (Willis) is sent into the jungle to rescue American doctor Lena Kendricks
(Bellucci). She refuses to leave unless the team agree to take the refuges she is caring for with them. Reluctantly straying from his orders. Water's agrees guide the people to the safety of the Cameroon border but he doesn't expect a battalion of rebel troops to be on his tail.

Opening when America's role of World peacemaker is making them a target of controversy and resentment in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tears of the Sun is another US take on how everyone else on the planet should see the US military and its fight for democracy.

Directed by Training Day helmer Antoine Fuqua, the movie isn't all gung-ho, relying on a more realistic "Saving Private Ryan", "Black Hawk Down" approach to movie military violence. The fighting is quick, calculated and precise in the early confrontations, as you'd expect modern Special Forces troops to be but a quite exciting and brutal all out battle in the run up to the finale is the highlight of the film.

The performances are decent. Willis and the rest of his team play career S.E.A.L.'s as you'd expect them to be, there to do a job. Willis himself doesn't really have much do say in this role but gives a better performance here than most of his last few efforts. Monica Bellucci proves again that she is more than just one of the most beautiful women in the world but also a great actress. This is another chance for her to showcase that talent for English speaking audiences. Cole Hauser is also good as Red Atkins and shows again that he has a talent for action.

What lets the movie down is its underlying pro-democracy and Christianity stance. Again the enemy is the Muslim faith with the finale offering hope for the Nigerian's to embrace the American way of life. This makes the movie more of a political statement than a piece of information cinema, as it
never offers an alternative point of view from a faceless and relentless enemy.

Tears of the Sun is not a bad film. The performances are very watchable, the set pieces are well shot and the final battle is exciting and dramatic but the message does tend to be shoved down your throat a little too far.

3 out of 5

Jamie Kelwick

THE USHER

Tears of the Sun-Columbia-3.5 Stars

Rebels forces in Nigeria are taking over the country and slaughtering men, women and children indiscriminately.

U.S. Special-Ops commander A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) is ordered to go in with his team and rescue Dr. Lena Hendricks (Monica Belluci) at a remote missionary outpost before the rebels reach her and kill everybody there in the action drama Tears from the Sun.

His instructions are clear. He must get her out but only her and the other white missionaries and not any of the refugees being helped at that location.

When Lena refuses to leave without the refugees, A.K. tricks her into thinking he is going to save them too.

On his way back to the aircraft carrier with her in the navy helicopter, Waters sees from the air how the rebels have killed all the remaining missionaries and refugees that were left behind.

His conscience gets to him and he orders the chopper to turn around and go back to the pick up point. A.K. then puts the wounded on the helicopter and takes the remainder refugees on a long walk to safety through the very dangerous jungle.

Right behind him and catching up fast is the large force of extremely violent rebels who can't wait to turn them into mincemeat.

Outnumbered, outgunned and on foot, A.K. must find a way to outsmart and outfight a very sadistic and inhumane enemy who is determined to butcher them all.

The film starts out slow and it takes about an hour to get to the action but when it finally arrives you get some exciting combat scenes.

Bruce Willis gives a low-key macho touch-as-nails performance that works with the over dramatic tendencies of the main cast.

Tears of the Sun feels like Rambo meets Die Hard in the Jungles of Africa where good must triumph over evil.

If you are looking for a predictable action movie with some exhilarating sequences than Tears of the Sun is for you.

Gil Benzeevi

Bruce Willis leads an elite strike force into war-torn Nigeria to rescue an aid-relief doctor and her staff before a massacre ensues. Why is this all necessary for just one woman?

Willis plays A.K. Waters, a Special-Ops commander who is instructed to go into a Nigerian relief hospital and save Dr Lena Hendricks (Monica Bellucci), a priest and two nuns at all costs. The tension builds when Hendricks decides she won’t leave until 70 refugees are evacuated with her. This turns her rescue mission into a battle of wills and emotions, which could spell the deaths of Waters and his SEAL team.

For almost three-quarters of this film, I felt a strong encompassing feeling of déjà vu. I kept telling myself that I had seen this film at least a half a dozen times before. Then I remembered all those oodles of films made about Vietnam and the conflict of wills a lot of those situations and characters had. I also remembered the films about the liberation of American POWs in Vietnam prisons. Can anyone say "Rambo: First Blood Part 2" or "Missing in Action"? Each of these kinds of themes can be compared to the plight felt in this film.

I watched the stone-chiseled face of Bruce Willis grunt and frown under his black military camouflage and didn’t have a single clue or inclination to what this Marine was thinking. Did he give a damn or was it just another mission? The whole film hinged on if the plight effected the Marines but with so much ambiguity it was so hard to tell. The audience knew what Monica Bellucci’s character Lena was going through because every time the camera went to her we saw the heart of the film. Why wasn’t there some hint of humanity in Willis?

With so war movies made in recent months, I found myself finding it hard to get into this film. "Training Day" director Antoine Fuqua lays a lot of heavy night scenes in his film and the majority of the film is filled with darkness and rain. I wanted to be able to see the actors as they struggled with their predicament. I also found Fuqua’s action sequences very tame. When audiences have been exposed to the raw realism of "Black Hawk Down", "Windtalkers" and "Saving Private Ryan", these do come off as tame.

I understand the atrocities and murders crippling countries like Nigeria but this film barely sheds ray of light into the truth. The film doesn’t succeed in delivering its message because there are a lot of plot-holes and circumstances that will leave the audience frustrated.

What is good about the film is rising star Monica Bellucci, the film’s score and the film’s dramatic conclusion. "Tears of the Sun" is a slow watered-down and boggy version of what could have been an intriguing war film.

(2 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

Tears of the Sun is a well-crafted militaristic film that is more of a drama than a pure action film. The film does have some action, the last half hour is non-stop, but the overall storyline stands above the war driven action sequences.

The film opens with a group of Navy Seals, lead by A.K. Waters (Willis) that arrive in an African war zone to rescue an American doctor that is currently working in a small village. The doctor is Lena Hendricks (Bellucci), who is an American by marriage and agrees to leave only if she can take along her fellow workers and patients. Waters and his crew lead her and the others toward the safety helicopters. Upon arrival the pick-up point, Waters more or less takes the doctor and leaves behind the rest of her people. However, as the unit flies over the doctor's village, Waters and his men see the destruction of the village by the rebel troops. He then turns the chopper around and returns to he ground to move on to Cameroon, which is a zone where they all will be safe. With more people for the unit to protect, the risk becomes higher as the group faces the conflicts war while a huge rebel army is tracking them.

More than an action war movie, Tears of the Sun focuses on Africa and the unspeakable horrors and genocide that some of the African people are facing due to their religious differences. The screenplay by Patrick Cirillo and Alex Laster starts off quick, the Navy Seals are really become known by their appearances and nicknames. Even the doctor character isn't really developed, but you still feel for the characters after the first half of the film. I guess it is the situational content and the film's strong acting that does this. The centered concepts of the screenplay are of course hope, freedom, and heroism. The protagonist, Waters, is very compelling because he is a hard-nosed solider that goes against his orders. Is he right or wrong? What would you do in his situation? These are a few questions that arise from some of his decisions, the character himself even admits halfway through the film that he doesn't know yet why he did what he did. For characters that the audience never learns the history of, the situations and contexts are what make them so identifiable.

Antoine Fuqua is on the rise as one of Hollywood's most proficient young directors. Previously, he brought us another powerful film, Training Day (2001). Now, with Tears of the Sun he gets a bigger budget and shows a lot more confidence. The violence and brutality isn't constant (like in We Were Soldiers (2002)) or too much (like in Black Hawk Down (2001)), it is balanced, but it stays in your head after you leave the theater. The action sequences are full of energy and the drama is very consistent. Fuqua uses a lot of shadows, rain, and green night vision as some of his selections. As a director, Fuqua also knows that with an actor like Bruce Willis, he can just let him hold the screen without him uttering one word of dialogue. Willis' character has maybe ten lines in the first 30 minutes of the film.

In the past, Willis has been a strong action hero star; he of course helped create the "one cop trapped against many terrorists" genre with Die Hard (1988). Over the last five years, Willis has been more selective with his roles and it has helped his range as an actor. Willis' performance as Waters has him roaming in an area of his craft that we have seen before, but his role in Tears of the Sun is one of his best. Monica Bellucci is a striking actress to watch work, with Tears of the Sun actually being one of her first Hollywood English speaking roles; she engulfs the screen and delivers emotional discoveries one after another as Dr. Hendricks. Watch out for Bellucci this summer in the upcoming Matrix sequel. The rest of the cast is also strong, which includes Oz's Eamonn Walker and Good Will Hunting's Cole Hauser as part of Water's unit.

Tears of the Sun is a lot more than an action film; it is a striking militaristic drama. There are a few inconsistencies in the film, but overall I thought was it a well-developed and constructed piece. Tears of the Sun will probably be one of the better films to come out this spring.

Report Card Grade: B

03/11/03
By Joseph Tucker
Copyright, 2003 Joseph C. Tucker

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