Making human choices in the decidedly inhuman atmosphere of war
is the core of the new movie
”
Tears of the Sun,
”
currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
Making human choices in the decidedly inhuman atmosphere of war is the core of the new movie “Tears of the Sun,” currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
The nearly 2-hour release from Sony Pictures’ Revolution Studios is not the greatest war movie ever made, but it is one of the better war movies made in the past few years. It’s a politically savvy, emotionally compelling and well-made movie about the difficult decisions that soldiers face in the battlefield.
Although the movie has a few holes in it, director Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day,” “The Replacement Killers” and “Bait”) does a superior job of trying to stay true to the basic question raised by the movie: If you know that an inujustice or a criminal act is taking place and you have the power to stop it, should you? It’s that question that the characters of this movie have to answer repeatedly.
Some of the emotional tugs on the audience’s heartstrings are a little heavy-handed, but they need to be strong if they’re going to compel the characters to make the choices they do.
The movie is helped along by some of the best acting Bruce Willis has displayed in awhile. Willis, who portrays Lt. A.K. Waters, leader of a Navy S.E.A.L. team, shows his talent as a actor through his silence and lets the expression in his eyes and face speaks volumes.
Willis, who also co-produced, proved how much he wanted this movie to be successful by going through an intense military-style physical training, during which he lost about 40 pounds getting into shape for this role.
Willis is surrounded by a group of square-jawed, rugged-looking cast members who make it easier to believe he’s the commander of an elite strike force.
The plot centers around the war-torn country of Nigeria in Central Eastern Africa where a group of rebel insurgents has murdered the ruling family and is roving the countryside killing virtually everyone they come in contact with. The ones they don’t kill are forced to become part of their murderous movement.
The action of the rebels closely resembles the inhuman brutality unleashed during the Rwandan civil war of the ’90s, when hundreds of thousands were slaughtered with hatchets and machetes, before the United States and other countries sent peacekeeping troops.
Waters and his team are sent into the hostile countryside to rescue a U.S. citizen, Dr. Lena Kendricks, played by Monica Bellucci ( “The Matrix: Reloaded,” “Under Suspicion” and “Brotherhood of the Wolf”) and three missionaries, but that’s all. Their orders say nothing about saving the lives of her staff or the injured and sick patients at the mission who will die if left behind.
Kendricks, who is passionate about her work with the injured residents, complicates Waters’ mission when she says she won’t leave unless he promises to take her staff and as many people as can walk.
Waters eventually agrees to take the residents on the strenuous hike through the jungle to the extraction point. But once they get there, Waters forces Kendricks into the helicopter and refuses to let anyone else on except for her and his men.
As the helicopter takes off, it passes over the smoldering remains of the mission with mutilated corpses strewn about the compound as scavenger animals begin to move in and pick at the dead.
It’s at this point in the story where Waters has to make a crucial decision – to complete his mission by getting Kendricks to safety on an aircraft carrier and leave nearly two dozen people behind to die a horrible death. Or does he go against his orders, all his training and everything he has stood for in his military career and risk his life and the lives of his team to save a group of people he does not know and has no direct connection with?
There is a lot of graphic violence and language in this movie that makes it unsuitable for children and those easily disturbed by scenes of violence.
