Bruce kicks some African ass! Yay! The fuzzy-wuzzies and jungle-bunnies are on the run! Arguably the most noxious and disturbing film released this year, but hardly without recent precedent, Tears Of The Sun follows faithfully in the fine tradition of subtle-as-a-sledgehammer promotional and propaganda exercises on behalf of the US military (think Black Hawk Down, Behind Enemy Lines etc).
Apart from a mild and merciful reduction in the deafening noise levels that usually accompany films such as these, Tears of the Sun is not strikingly different from its innumerable predecessors. Thumpingly dull, with lobotomised dialogue, it’s set in darkest Nigeria, and would appear to be (loosely) based on actual events: General Abacha’s bloody coup, and the festering conflict between the nation’s various ethnic groups, which the script successfully manages to simplify into a battle betwen good decent Christians and bloodthirsty Muslim savages fond of mutilating women and children.
Bruce Willis and an elite Navy S.E.A.L. unit are then thrown into the volatile mix, their evident role being one of protecting the good guys from the bad guys, as evidenced in countless US interventions down the years. (While there is substantial evidence of serious atrocities against Nigeria’s Christian population, the film’s depiction of the situation is so reductive and unenlightened as to beggar belief). In a questionable piece of casting, Monica Bellucci plays the doctor who tends to the war’s bloodied refugees, who themselves are being tracked by a vicious rebel militia.
Several tedious skirmishes later (at two hours, Tears Of The Sun takes its bloody time), Bruce and pals head on their merry way having more or less civilised the place. As the credits roll, right on cue, Edmund Burke’s ‘triumph of evil’ quote pops up on the screen, by way of explaining what we’ve just witnessed. While no-one would claim that life anywhere in West Africa is exactly easy, such a troubled region surely deserves less patronising treatment than the film seems willing to afford. Please avoid this like you would the plague.