Cheap Tears of the Sun (DVD) (Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser) (Antoine Fuqua) Price

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Customer Reviews of Tears of the Sun

Bruce Willis plays a Navy S.E.A.L. Lieutenant who leads a band of men into war-torn Africa to extract an American doctor (Monica Bellucci) and a nun and a priest. When they arrive at the doctor's "mission," she refuses to leave her people behind. Willis disobeys direct orders from the big man on the carrier (Tom Selleck), and tells her she can bring them along to the extraction point. When they arrive, she realizes he lied to her. Feeling sorry for the Africans, Willis allows her to bring 12 people along. Skip forward a few chapters on your DVD player, and you'll see that they are being tracked by African soldiers on a rampage. If they don't make it out by a few days, they'll all be dead.

Monica Bellucci's Dr. Kendrix is a whiny, arrogant person. Willis' character saves her life and disobeys direct orders many times. Just for her. But she still whines. One thing that got me was when Willis tells her they must keep moving because of enemy troops hot on their trail, but she says "We've been walking for thirty hours! We need rest!" Well, excuuuuuse me, but the stinkin' people wouldn't even BE THERE if it wasn't for Willis disobeying direct orders. Something's better than nothing, lady. But oh well, it's just a movie.

Bruce Willis gives a fairly good lead in the film, but I can't help but feel that he seems tired. Maybe it's a sign of a great actor enveloping his weathered old S.E.A.L. LT. Or maybe it's just a tired-out actor. Time will tell. I suppose he'll be sleeping by the time "Die Hard 4: Die Hardest" starts filming.

Monica Bellucci is a good choice for this film, mainly because she doesn't seem like someone who wouldn't be in Africa. I can't imagine what it would look like if, say, Willis had to rescue some beauty queen. "Stop running--I broke a nail!" Unlike films where the leading lady is running through stormy locations and still comes out with her hair-doo intact, Bellucci's hair becomes greasy and sweaty and her clothes get dirty. It's a bit more realistic than a film like this usually tries to be. Kudos there.

But in the long run, "Tears of the Sun" is nothing extraordinarily special. It's good, and entertaining, but wait till video to see it. It's not worth flying out to the theater for. Although, as I write this, the film is already out on VHS and DVD. I guess I just got a late screening on this one.

MediaGab Review
Bruce Willis stars in the action-adventure film 'Tears of the Sun'. Willis plays Lt. Waters who is in charge of a S.E.A.L.s team on a routine rescue mission. They are sent in to save a American doctor of a Nigerian mission from rebels that are causing devastation across the country. Unfortunately Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) talks Lt. Waters into taking the people that she is caring for in her mission. We find that Lt. Waters takes on more to the mission then just a simple rescue. He finds that he cares more and more for the people of the mission instead of having a heart of steal. "Tears of the Sun" is about what happens when we do the right thing instead of doing nothing at all. Without the protection of the S.E.A.L.s protection the refugees would have been massacred.

The movie jumps right into the action skipping character development. We learn about the characters during the mission. I found that the movie was exciting to watch but due to the lack of character development in the beginning it takes a while to get comfortable with the movie.

The plot of the movie is intriguing to me. Lt. Water becomes a hero in this fictitious story because he defies specific orders and puts his life and the lives of his team at risk to save many lives that were otherwise not his responsibility.

I give the movie a 4 out of 5 subtracting one point for the slow character development. Some of the reviews bash Willis for his role in the movie, I didn't think he did a bad job. Again you just have to wonder if the professional movie critics are watching the same movie as the rest of us.

Not bad, but it just didn't do it for me
You can't really call "Tears of the Sun" a bad movie. By any account it's certainly a decent action war movie, and I enjoyed it. Where "Tears of the Sun" fails to succeed is in it's somewhat one-dimensional and shallow aproach at including policical and social messages, and in it's seeming impotence at crossing the lines from mediocrity to greatness.

The plot is pretty much a no brainer that gets set up right from the get-go. The Democratic government in Nigeria gets ousted by a military coup and rebel forces execute the presidential family and begin an genocidal killing spree, killing christians and rival tribes. Bruce willis and his small special forces team is sent to to find and evacuate several US Citizens, including a doctor working at a christian mission. The doctor wont leave without her patients, and so Willis and his team agree to escort the people to the Cameroon border. Of course they are followed by the rebels the whole way and are grossly outnumbered and it becomes a race to get to the border and to safety before they are completely over run.

Not exactly full of surprises and not much food for thought. of course there is the initial lie/double cross, and then the classic (not to mention very cliche) moment where our heroes grow a conscience after witnessing the horrors and extent of ethnic cleansing that is taking place and decide to help the people as thier way of making amens with thier own guilty consciences. other than this there is little to talk about plot-wise.

The acting is pretty good, although it varies throughout. Willis himself does a very good job playing his charcter though other than him and the doctor none of the characters grew on me. The setting is great, and the shots of the african landscape were very nice. For being an action war movie, "Tears of the Sun" offered only sporadic action until the climatic battle at the end which was mildy impressing, though nothing you havent scene before.

There is a constant attempt throughout the movie to bring attention to the brutality the ethnic cleansing that occurs in Africa that most americans are unaware of. We hear about bosnia, kosovo, but not so much about the many war torn regions in africa many of which are subject to constant guerilla warfare, famine, tribal clashes, and civil wars. The current attention being given to the situation in Sudan is very similar to what is shown in the movie. The look we are given however, although sad and mildly graphic, is a little one dimensional, and doesnt really explore the complexity of the political, ethnic, and religious angles of african conflicts. instead this is all reduced to "good guys vs bad guy" with the US as the good guys who sit idley by of course. I think many people will wish that the movie had a more realistic and more complete look at this angle of the plot rather than just showin "a bunch of rebel guys in red hats who run around killing all the christians and guys from the other tibes".

Other than that there is an overwhelming lack of depth and substance to the movie. Character development was underdone and there just arent many layers beyond what you see on the surface. And what is on the surface, though not bad, is not spectacular either. While I liked the movie over all, it just didnt have enough meat to it I felt. There were times I would just feel like something I couldnt put my finger on was missing to this one.

"Tears of the sun" does win points however for atleast trying to shed some public light to the attrocities in africa that most of the world lives happily ignorant to. It also serves as an effective, and enjoyable military action movie that is hard to hate but impossible to love.