To begin my review, I'd first like to point out that I only went to see this because it was the only thing I sort of wanted to see that was playing at a convenient time for me. The reason, I was tired of war movies, and at a time when the word "war" is heard in every conversation of the day, not to mention that in the past few years we've already had everything from Black Hawk Down to Windtalkers to keep our bloodlust at bay, I figured I'd just catch this on video. But, like I said, this was pretty much the only thing playing at the time I went, so I went in to see a war movie. Turns out that this wasn't the kind of movie I thought it was.
I've read plenty of reviews, positive and negative, about Tears of the Sun and all of them touched on certain things that were stuck in my head as I watched it. They said that the characters weren't developed at all, and that the action wasn't enough to keep action fans happy. The acting was okay, and Monica Belluci's hair and makeup stay in-tact during the entire film, keeping her beautiful while everything's blowing up around her. Are these things true... not really. Let me explain.
Tears of the Sun is not the kind of movie that I really need to go into the plot with. The trailors tell you enough: Bruce Willis leads a Special Ops unit into Nigeria to rescue a doctor (Belluci) from the threat of civil war. The political unrest in Nigeria leads to ethnic cleansing, and anyone in the way of the tribe now in power will be executed, just like the President (of Nigeria) and his family were. So they go in and try to pull her out, but she won't leave without her people. So goes the story of the film, the soldiers who defy their orders and do what's right instead. Have we seen this before? Of course, but today it's rare to see something completely original in concept, it's how that concept is built upon that matters and makes a good movie.
I really enjoyed this film, and like I said it wasn't at all what I expected. War movies today are full of intense battles and non-stop excitement. They usually have lots of soldier characters with their own back-stories and reasons for being there. Tears of the Sun decided NOT to throw us into the jungle with another group of soldiers that have families and reasons for their actions etc, etc. They are Special Ops soldiers who do their job, no questions asked. They are pretty much left that way. We see that they have a heart underneath their tough outer shell by the fact that they deviated from their mission. Do we need anything else? Do we really need unnecessary character development such as "what's back home" or some event in the past that made them numb to this lifestyle? No, we've seen those characters before, and I like the way this film showed them as soldiers an nothing more. Like we saw them the way the rest of the characters did. The rest of the characters being the refugees in Nigeria that the team must save. With the exception of Willis and Belluci, every one else was pretty much nameless, yet I still found myself identifying with them in the key scenes. The situation at hand, that was the main character.
The action scenes are another thing. In the trailors you see all these explosions and armies in the jungles. That's about 5% of the movie. Most of the movie is actually really quiet. People sneaking around trying not to get into the big battles the audience wants to see. In these scenes, we learn more of the situation that the people of Nigeria are dealing with. We don't get a history lesson, but we see enough messed up stuff to show us that the situation is not good. If this had been a non-stop-battle movie, I probably wouldn't have liked it as much. Like I said, I'm tired of that. Enemy At the Gates only had one big battle scene at the beginning, and the rest of the movie managed to be more intense with only a handful of characters. This is sort of the same thing, though I won't lie, I don't think Tears of the Sun is anywhere near as good as Enemy At the Gates... I love that movie.
The acting was great by everyone, in particular Eamon Walker (HBO's Oz) and Cole Hauser (Pitch Black, Dazed and Confused, Higher Learning) who played Willis' two main soldiers. But it was the lack of set characters and starpower-versus-everyone-else that made this movie. The lack of character development and the lack of explanation and detail in the story, these things made the movie more realistic. This was a Hollywood war movie, but it had more heart to it because it was like watching a peice of a war without actually getting into the war. Though they are helping these people, are they really going to make a difference in the scheme of things? Probably not, but that's not the point. They aren't trying to fix the country, just help a couple people get out of it alive. They don't have to, and they'll probably get in trouble for it (if they survive), so it's the way these men just try to do something good for once that's the driving force. And I think the filmmakers did a good job.
This movie won't have a major impact on people's lives, it won't make people cry like Saving Private Ryan, but its not the kind of conflict that would. This movie will make you think about the issues it involves, it has heart, it has intensity, and it has a story that matters in some way. If you want to watch a good movie that deals with the downside of war and the kinds of people that get caught in the conflict, this is it. If you wnat to watch an action-packed war movie, you may want to watch something else. This is a small-scale war film, and a good one, too.
---Garth Simmons.
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