Tears Of The Sun (2004) February 6, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , add a commentDirected 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.
Four Brothers (2005) February 2, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , add a commentDirected by: John Singleton
A simple story of family revenge, this Mark Wahlberg-starring flick came out to mixed reviews last year. Like many films of the genre, the set-up is nice and straightforward: Four adopted tearaways return to Detroit after their adoptive mother is murdered during a grocery story robbery. The Mercer brothers, as they are known, decide that the only way to deal with it is to get even. So the mismatch family work together to track down the killers. Cue violence.
Now the cast certainly causes no harm to the picture, each fitting their roles well, even if those roles are slightly stereotypical: the hothead leader, the ‘kid’, the settled-down one etc. Mark Wahlberg unleashes the inner thug without much problem, while musician-come-actor André Benjamin (of Black Eyed Peas fame) shows that he’s got what it takes to work in film, his roles both here and in Be Cool setting him apart from past singer-to-actor failures.
The film is competently directed by John Singleton, if nothing that’s going to set the world on fire. The same goes for the writing actually, although apparently a lot of the lines were improvised on-set, which might explain the lack of decent dialogue. Some plot twists are quite predictable, though I thought they were handled well, and even though the story is a simple one there is plenty going on throughout to keep you interested.
If fault lies anywhere it’s in the choice of characters. As criminals and thugs they certainly aren’t your traditional heroes, and while the story tries to show them in a good light, I was never convinced that their more violent actions were entirely warranted. It’s good to see that they care about family so much, but there’s a point in the film when they make the jump from threat, to force, and you start to wonder whether their saintly mother would really have wanted any of this.
While sometimes playing things a little too by-the-numbers, but never enough to completely turn you off, the result is neither great nor terrible. It’s just very average – a word I could’ve used to describe almost every aspect of this film. Worth a look if you’re into this kind of thing, or want to take a break for a couple of hours. You won’t get much out of it, but you can at least enjoy it while it lasts.
