Tears Of The Sun (2004) February 6, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Antoine Fuqua
This story takes place in war-torn Africa, where rebel forces are slowly bringing death and destruction to the localised colonies. Lieutenant A. K. Waters (Bruce Willis) is sent on a routine mission with his team of Navy SEALS to rescue a doctor (played by Monica Bellucci) working at a small Catholic missionary. But Dr. Lena Kendricks won’t leave without a fight.
She forces Waters and the rest of the team to question their duty, by creating a situation whereby she’ll only come with them if they allow the injured people to come too. With their exit helicopters now taking sick refugees to safety, the SEALS are forced to protect themselves, the remaining refugees and Dr Kendricks, in a journey to the next pick-up point. But it isn’t as straightforward as they had hoped. A team of dangerous rebels are tracking them through the jungle with an unstoppable intent that soon starts to raise questions from Waters and his team.
Director Antoine Fuqua does a good job of shooting both the slower jungle sections, and the big action battle sequences. He showed his knack for developing interesting characters in Training Day, but unfortunately that skill is put to less use here. There is some nice cinematography though, especially for a film produced in such difficult shooting conditions.
Regrettably , there are plenty of problems too. First of all, while its intentions are good, I don’t think the story of rescuing refugees and the whole idea of good men fighting to achieve good things is anywhere near as strong as it is in Three Kings, for example. While Bruce Willis’s character clearly changes through the picture, Bruce himself doesn’t manage to keep up. I’m still not sure what causes his change of heart in the first place, because you never get the impression that he really cares for the people he’s saving.
Plus, despite decent performances from the actors playing the SEALS, we don’t get to know the team that well. There is very little character development set aside for them at all, apart from the predictable ‘marines become more compassionate’ angle, which still feels a little forced. Even Monica Bellucci comes off wasted in a role that amounts to no more than setting up the initial story, before spending the rest of the film following everyone else.
Tears of the Sun is not a complete waste of time, there are some exciting jungle shootouts, as well as some nicely handled sequences showing the atrocities that men can commit. All in all however, the documentary footage shown in the first three minutes of the movie is much more emotionally startling and affecting than anything else in the film. For entertainment you can stick with this, but for the real message it may be a wise choice to hunt down those documentaries instead.
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