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Tears Of The Sun | Year: 2003 Classification: Action/War Country: USA Directed: - Antoine Fuqua Actors/Actresses: - Bruce Willis - Monica Bellucci - Tom Skerritt - Cole Hauser A solidly crafted thriller. Tears of the Sun is hardly perfect. Director Antoine Fuqua's direction can get a bit heavy-handed and most of the characters are one to two-dimensional in development (understandable, given the large cast). But it's a solidly made, often thrilling and sometimes thought-provoking film that aims for serious issues, particularly as a sober outlook of modern warfare and morals. It's not entirely successful at the latter, but to even attempt to stray from typical Hollywood is admirable, and Tears of the Sun is often more hit than miss. Bruce Willis stars as A.K. Waters, the head of a mission to retrieve a Dr. Lena Hendricks (Monica Bellucci) from the Nigerian jungle, after Muslim rebels have just assassinated the presidential family, and are on a rampage throughout the country. Hendricks is located easily, but she will only leave so long as all able-bodied individuals on her mission can come along. Waters reluctantly agrees, but soon finds that he and his group must trek the jungles with no assistance and with 300 Nigerian soldiers hot on their trail. Tears of the Sun works as a thoughtful film, but is more successful as a tension-builder. Director Fuqua shows an able hand at building suspense to a feverish pitch, all the way to the concluding battle sequence, a fifteen minute setpiece that rivals any recent war film in both intensity and technical superiority. The other major action setpiece is a tense shootout in a village, the aftermath of which is disturbing in its revelation of the rebels' treatment of civilians. Tears of the Sun is a violent film, but never exploitative in its approach. The film's two best developed characters belong to Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci. Willis has always been a fine actor, this understated approach has worked for him before and fits like a glove here. I'm not quite as familiar with Bellucci, who I've only seen in Brotherhood of the Wolf and as one of the brides in Bram Stoker's Dracula, but she's quite good here, easily the film's anchor when it comes to heart and warmth. I'm certainly not exaggerating when I say she's one of the most beautiful (and bodacious) women to ever grace the screen (and I look forward to her in the upcoming Matrix sequels). There are flaws, such as the rather obtrusive musical score and some pretentious use of slow motion on Fuqua's behalf. The film's biggest narrative stumble comes with a plot twist 3/4's through the movie, when an extraneous plot twist is revealed. Admittedly, without the twist, the film wouldn't have been able to build up as much suspense, much less deliver that final battle. But when all is said and done, Tears of the Sun is highly recommended, a Hollywood film that has more on its mind than explosion and gunfights (which the movie still has an ample amount of). Not bad, but it just didn't do it for me You can't really call "Tears of the Sun" a bad movie. By any account it's certainly a decent action war movie, and I enjoyed it. Where "Tears of the Sun" fails to succeed is in it's somewhat one-dimensional and shallow aproach at including policical and social messages, and in it's seeming impotence at crossing the lines from mediocrity to greatness. The plot is pretty much a no brainer that gets set up right from the get-go. The Democratic government in Nigeria gets ousted by a military coup and rebel forces execute the presidential family and begin an genocidal killing spree, killing christians and rival tribes. Bruce willis and his small special forces team is sent to to find and evacuate several US Citizens, including a doctor working at a christian mission. The doctor wont leave without her patients, and so Willis and his team agree to escort the people to the Cameroon border. Of course they are followed by the rebels the whole way and are grossly outnumbered and it becomes a race to get to the border and to safety before they are completely over run. Not exactly full of surprises and not much food for thought. of course there is the initial lie/double cross, and then the classic (not to mention very cliche) moment where our heroes grow a conscience after witnessing the horrors and extent of ethnic cleansing that is taking place and decide to help the people as thier way of making amens with thier own guilty consciences. other than this there is little to talk about plot-wise. The acting is pretty good, although it varies throughout. Willis himself does a very good job playing his charcter though other than him and the doctor none of the characters grew on me. The setting is great, and the shots of the african landscape were very nice. For being an action war movie, "Tears of the Sun" offered only sporadic action until the climatic battle at the end which was mildy impressing, though nothing you havent scene before. There is a constant attempt throughout the movie to bring attention to the brutality the ethnic cleansing that occurs in Africa that most americans are unaware of. We hear about bosnia, kosovo, but not so much about the many war torn regions in africa many of which are subject to constant guerilla warfare, famine, tribal clashes, and civil wars. The current attention being given to the situation in Sudan is very similar to what is shown in the movie. The look we are given however, although sad and mildly graphic, is a little one dimensional, and doesnt really explore the complexity of the political, ethnic, and religious angles of african conflicts. instead this is all reduced to "good guys vs bad guy" with the US as the good guys who sit idley by of course. I think many people will wish that the movie had a more realistic and more complete look at this angle of the plot rather than just showin "a bunch of rebel guys in red hats who run around killing all the christians and guys from the other tibes". Oth One-dimensional but... I really have quite ambivalent felings about this movie. From one hand, it's full of cliches and very simpleminded. You pretty much know what will happen, a lot of things are overdramatized (not the scenes of atrocities though). The acting is mediocre but it's not a problem of actors but rather of a bad script. On the other hand, the scenes of atrocities in the movie (somewhere in Africa - Sudan comes right away to mind) make people to realize that such terrible things are really happening today. It did really resonate through probably some shock - at least that's the way I feel. And who knows, maybe a simplemindness of this movie helps to deliver the message. I would give one star for cinematographic qualities and five stars for revealing the problem and showing disasters really happening in the world today. Buy Tears Of The Sun at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Tears Of The Sun Search with the Priority Search Engine on Tears Of The Sun This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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