Rewind – Tears of the Sun (2003)

With the recent stream of movies about the conflicts in Africa in the last few years (Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, Catch a Fire, Last King of Scotland), I decided to watch one that I haven’t seen in a while: Tears of the Sun.

This is definitely more of an action movie than some of the more politically-oriented movies I mentioned above, but it provides an interesting aspect on the situation nonetheless.

For those that may have missed it, Bruce Willis plays a Special Ops captain who leads a team of men into a mission where they must extract an American doctor. When she refuses to leave without her people, things get complicated. Willis does a fairly good job of portraying a strict military guy that has some compassion hidden underneath.

The movie was not without some issues – namely in the believability department. I know that I may criticize films too heavily for not maintaining a believable plot, but this one had some glaring holes. Special Ops or not, soldiers would not disobey orders to this magnitude…nor would their superiors be so easy-going about the incident. Then of course the battle scenes were a little over the top, but I’ve never been in a shootout with African rebels, so maybe I’m wrong. The movie did everything it could to make the Americans look like the heroes of the day and felt a little cheesy, especially when the rest of the world probably sees things a different way.

I did find out that the movie was shot entirely in Hawaii – and I have to say that the location crew did a good job with this. It wasn’t until after this second viewing that I learned this fact, and they certainly had me fooled.

For those with Blu-Ray players, I have read that the transfer is very nice and would probably be worth seeing again in high definition, even if its just for the scenery.

Tears of the Sun is a movie that should be seen at least once, especially if it missed your radar. However, four years after its release, it hasn’t gotten any better either. I suppose there are certainly worse choices you could make for a second sitting, and it works well for what it is – a simple action movie that tries to pull out a little sympathy.