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DVD Tears of the Sun (Director's Extended Cut)
While it offers nothing new to the military action genre, Tears of the Sun distinguishes itself with fine acting, expert craftsmanship, and seriousness of purpose. Its familiar "extraction mission" plot is essentially similar to that of Black Hawk Down, involving a crack team of U.S. Special Ops commandos struggling to rescue innocent missionaries amidst the bloody horror of Nigerian ethnic cleansing. With Bruce Willis as their grizzled, no-nonsense commander, the skillful team enters a hot zone that gets even hotter when their "package"--an American national (Monica Bellucci) who runs the isolated mission--demands that 70 Nigerian villagers be included in the rescue. Willis's uneasy conscience leads him to defy orders and expand his mission, and in an ambitious follow up to Training Day, director Antoine Fuqua escalates tension and strike-force with considerable emotional impact. Originally considered as a potential entry in Willis's Die Hard series, and released on the eve of America's war with Iraq, Tears of the Sun admirably avoids jingoism with its rousing story of personal good vs. political evil. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD Tears of the Sun (Director's Extended Cut)
Squinting and ideology
This movie is an example of racist ideology created to pacify apathetic American moviegoers that have heard that something bad is going on in Africa. The pretentious placement of an Edmund Burke quote ("All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.") at the end of the film does nothing to place the Nigerian conflict in a historical context or provide a possible active role for the sympathetic viewer. It merely supports the apathy of the target audience: suburban Christian Republicans (note the subplot of Christian persecution in the Mission scenes). It also provides a fantasy image of the military-industrial complex as a humanitiarian force in order to resolve any tension the viewer may have about our current military adventures overseas.
As if this were not enough, Bruce Willis squints like a constipated monkey throughout the entire film.
Typical war movie
This movie is about a Navy special forces team led by LT. Waters that is sent into Nigeria to evacuate an American doctor before rebel soldiers reach her camp.
Everything is going according to plan until the doctor refuses to leave with the soldiers unless they take all of the refugees she is caring for as well. Lt. Waters agrees and takes everyone on a long and difficult hike through the jungle to a landing zone where they are met by Navy helicopters. Lt Water's and his men get the doctor on a helicopter but abandon the refugees - who will most definitely be brutally killed by the approaching rebels.
As the helicopters fly away Lt. Waters has a change of heart and goes back for the refugees. This to me seemed unbelievable but if they hadn't turned around there would be no more to the movie.
Once on the ground with the refugees they have to make another long hike to the country's border and safety. This is where the movie falls apart in my opinion and starts to rely on many tired war movie cliches. A very small band of highly trained soldiers who are saving the weak and innocent face imposible odds against a HUGE and heavily armed enemy force. As is always the case in this type of movie the "good guys" are able to pick off dozens of enemy soldiers while remaining virtually immune to to the hundreds of men firing fully automatic rifles, grenades and rockets at them. Of course there is always a couple of lesser important "good guy" characters that get killed in order to keep the action level high. The fighting continues, with the enemy getting closer by the second as the Americans struggle to reach the border - it almost looks like they are not going to make it but not surprisingly air support (in the form of two heavily loaded F-18s) swoops in, fires some missiles and wipes out all the enemy soldiers in big crowd pleasing explosions.
Great Bruce Movie
When you think of a Bruce Willis movie, this is it. Sent to protect refugees, Willis leads a group he can't leave behind through the heart of the African Jungle. Filled with plenty of action and drama this movie will please every Bruce Willis fan.
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