2003, R, 121 minutes

After watching the movie, I still don't know why it's called Tears of the Sun, although it's really an appropriate title. At first glance it implies the kind of depth and spirituality not usually associated with action films, but even if the title is derived from something meaningful, the actual use of it is hollow or at least severely misguided. This matches the film perfectly, as it pretends to be important and poignant but is really a simplistic wolf in sheep's clothing. It sure would be nice if the world was actually this black and white, and knowing the right thing to do was so clear.

You can't be too critical of a film like Tears of the Sun because it does have honest intentions, attempting to show us that evil will triumph if good men (or women) stand by and do nothing. This is the situation that arises when Bruce Willis - returning to his action roots - leads his team into the jungle of Nigeria to extract an American doctor (Monica Bellucci), and instead of sticking to his mission decides to protect a group of refugees. This is okay if you can accept it as a piece of fiction, but I guess my disappointment comes from the fact that the real Africa is extremely complex with numerous factions and tribes conflicting in a multitude of ways, and is rarely ever as cut and dry as depicted in this movie. In other words, if reality provides a complex environment that would be the perfect setting for a complicated film with the potential to raise all sorts of questions about morality, why dumb it down?

What saves Tears of the Sun from being completely worthless is director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), who does an amazing job of trying to cover up a week screenplay. He uses style in place of substance, and to his credit the film is genuinely interesting and suspenseful for quite some time. However, as much as I liked the first half despite the lack of character, I knew it wouldn't last; by the time the story reaches its conclusion, our heroes have drawn out every cliché in the book and we really don't care about them as much as we should. Bruce Willis also helps to make up for his depthless character, enabling us to like him out of sheer charisma and screen presence even though the story gives us little reason.

As I have already mentioned, the screenplay is incredibly bad. The basic premise had a lot of potential, but the problem is the plot fails to examine the premise on more than a superficial level. Bruce and his team extract their target, then turn around to save the refugees they abandoned, and that's it. There are a few memorable sequences along the way, as well as a small twist that peeked my interest temporarily, but not nearly enough to be considered engaging. Also, the film should have been a good fifteen minutes shorter; towards the end bullets are blazing and people are dropping like flies, but the whole time I was anticipating the final credits because I didn't really care.

I suppose Tears of the Sun is passable as a piece of popcorn entertainment, but I wanted so much more. You could blame this on my expectations, but the truth is the film pretends to be deep and important and that's precisely where it goes wrong.