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If
I didn't know any better (and I usually don't), I'd swear Tears
of the Sun was a film whipped up by the White House to help
sell their war in Iraq. Watching the movie, which is about Navy
SEALs fighting Muslim extremists, might not necessarily give you
that impression, but the title card that follows the final scene
– Edmund Burke's quote about evil triumphing when good men do
nothing – practically has Dubya's fluffernutter-stained
fingerprints all over it.
The
funny thing is that a ground invasion of Iraq, especially one
made through Turkey, will probably put US soldiers in a very
similar situation as the one depicted in Tears.
One can easily see our troops in the jackpot situation of
having direct orders not to involve themselves with the massacre
of Kurds in Northern Iraq, but then thinking with their hearts
instead of their heads (and enduring a higher body count as a
result). That's
pretty much what happens in Tears, as a team of Navy
SEALs are sent into a recently overthrown Nigeria to
"extract critical American personnel ASAP." The
"personnel" are like a bad bar joke – a priest, two
nuns and a hot Italian doctor.
But
when A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis, Hart's
War) and his men find the Americans in a remote village,
none of them want to leave, especially Dr. Lena Hendricks
(Monica Bellucci, Irreversible),
who is too devoted to the well-being of the locals to which she
has grown very attached. The
only way Waters can convince Lena to leave is by promising she
can bring about 70 villagers with her to the safety of Cameroon.
The promise is, of course, empty, and once the parade
makes its way to the extraction point, Waters snatches a kicking
and screaming Lena and throws her onto a helicopter.
As they begin to fly away, Waters is struck by the image
of the 70 natives, who will surely be slaughtered by the same
Christian-killing Muslim rebels who murdered the Nigerian
president and his entire family.
That's
when the SEALs start caring and stop following direct orders,
which involves them getting off the helicopters and packing them
full of as many soon-to-be refugees as possible (but not Lena,
for some unexplained reason) while marching the rest by foot to
the Cameroon border. Basically,
the first 90 minutes of Tears are very unassuming, in the
same way Enemy At the Gates
was (some people might even call it "tedious").
The last half-hour is non-stop action, however, pitting
the ridiculously outnumbered SEALs against the rebels in a
battle they'd never win in real life.
And all the while, Waters's commander (Tom Skerritt, Texas
Rangers) barks orders to him over a cell phone as he stands
on an aircraft carrier dressed like he's enjoying a cruise.
Basically,
Tears is a lot like Three
Kings, except with people replacing the gold.
And without the dark humor.
And without the witty dialogue, and character
development. Jesus,
how the hell did they drag this thing out to two hours? Hans Zimmer's African-tinged score is decent, as is Willis's
low-key performance which involves more acting with his eyes
than his body. People
will probably mistake Bellucci for a stretched-out Rachel Weisz,
and Cole Hauser registers his second straight co-starring role
in a Bruce Willis war flick.
I was almost behind Antoine Fuqua's (Training
Day) picture until his crazy attempt to make the ending
uplifting, despite the horror of what we just saw, and what will
likely continue after you leave the theatre. Then again, that's
probably what will happen in Iraq once we "win" there,
too.
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for
strong war violence, some brutality and language |
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