3 out of 5

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Tears of the Sun is more like 3.5 stars (these differences are important to you, I know), but doesn’t quite have the intelligence or full-out integrity to bring it into the upper echelon of thoughtful war movies. The setup makes it seem like this is going to be business as usual: some Navy SEALs – led by Lt. (movie name) Bruce Willis – are sent into war-torn Africa to retrieve an American doctor. But even during the mission briefing, where we get a view and visual character-checks of all our principles, Fuqua proves that there was something to the attention he received with his prior film: this is not a blockbuster movie focusing on Willis and one-liners and explosions with required tears thrown in at appropriate times, but rather a mostly quiet, mostly sad war movie that just happens to have a big name star. And as the more controlled directors have been able to do, Fuqua controls Willis’ smirk, but also doesn’t allow him full reticence, with the same going for the rest of the SEALs, making all of our leads believable and fleshed out. The plot machinations come from the doctor – Monica Belluci – refusing to leave her patients, and thus causing the SEALs to trek through enemy territory with refugees in tow to a safe haven. The developments leading up to the how and why are spaced well for 121 minutes, and Fuqua uses the setup as a platform to explore the muddled nature of people fighting each other. It works. Some scenes are powerful. But like many big budget movies, you’re not generally allowed to fully push the envelope, and so inevitably some children must be saved, some relationships hinted at, some happy endings, and there must be tons of tribal chanting on the soundtrack. So it’s easy to see Tears of the Sun, overall, as average. But everyone involved, I can believe, saw a tumultuous experience right underneath the surface and did their best to bring it out.