"He was trained to follow orders. He became a hero by defying them." Films' taglines rarely act as a comprehensive summarisation of their contents, but in the case of 'Tears of the Sun' this says pretty much everything you need to know about this self-important action adventure with a brash humanitarian edge. In one of his less charismatic performances, Willis plays a Navy Seals lieutenant sent into a stricken Nigeria with his platoon to evacuate Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), an American doctor working at a remote mission. A bloody coup d'etat by Muslim forces (who else?) has plunged Nigeria into chaos and bands of militias are conducting a policy of ethnic cleansing on their advancement to the capital. Needless to say, the good doctor - who, despite living in limited jungle accommodation for several months looks fantastic - won't leave her outpost without a group of refugees. With his conscience suitably sparked by Kendricks' idealism, Bruce's monosyllabic character defies his orders and begins the treacherous trek of leading the refugees across the border into Cameron.
Technically, Tears of the Sun is a very well made movie, but its fatal flaw lies in the fact that it haphazardly attempts to marry action-adventure with a deep routed if rather naive social conscience. More problematically, Tears of the Sun trades off the old favourites of rhetoric, self-important dialogue and a collection of easy-to-digest stereotypes when it comes to Africans (either saintly or satanic), painting a disarmingly simplistic portrait of a deeply complex situation. There's an interesting movie begging to be made on this subject, but it's not Tears of the Sun.
