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Essay on Tears of the Sun
Somewhere within Tears of the Sun is a deeper message. This movie aspired to be more than the typical action movie, but could never quite figure out what it wanted to say. So it flounders around for a while, before succumbing to the temptations of mindless gunfire and explosions. It would have been interesting if the moral dilemma posited in the beginning carried through to the end, but that is probably expecting too much.
"Memories of the Biafran/ Nigerian civil war reechoed in a new Hollywood classic - Tears of the Sun starring Bruce Willis and Italian model-actress, Monica Bellucci. The new flick is a recreation of the horror of the war that threatened the nation's unity decades ago.(Web,1)
Lt. A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) is a war-worn Navy SEAL who leads his men into Nigeria to rescue Dr. Lena Kendrick's (Monica Bellucci), an American who runs a mission, from an impending attack of local militant rebels. The doctor, however, cares for a number of patients and will not leave unless the Seals take the patients on the long trek to the border of Cameroon.
Against orders, Waters agrees, and soon the Seals come under attack, and find themselves protecting a man sought by the militia.
There are no real surprises in this film. Gun fights. Explosions. A "by-the-book" officer finds himself throwing the "book" out and struggling against orders and his morality. Willis and Bellucci fall in love.
The character's are cardboard cutouts of other characters that we've seen in many different films before: Willis plays the same guy that he played in Hart's War or in Mercury Rising or in Color of Night, etc., the doctor is the archetypical woman in distress who can be as tough as the hero; the bad guys are just "bad guys" with no real life to them....
