Tears of the Sun
 

Just watched "Tears of the Sun". Am I alone?

I thought it was a decent flick. The lead actress, Monica Bellucci, is beautiful. Some of the shots in the movie were clearly aimed toward the male audience, and I'm not referring to the guns and ammo.

The plot is much like that of Blackhawk Down in that it centers around the action rather than the characters.

Nothing particularly new in the movie, but entertaining and worth matinee price.

It lacks the heart and soul of <b>Black Hawk Down</b>

I thought it was ok, but the idiot behind me kept talking through the whole film. In addition, after I had told him to be quiet four times he told me that he would jump me outside. The funny thing is that he really tried to jump on me and kick me, when a police car drove by watching the whole thing. Why do dumb people not think of the consequences? :D

This could have been a disaster of a film, but thankfully, it's not. This film does a good job of showing viewers the necessity of force in times of anarchy and unchecked human impulses with minimal morality on display, and takes us through a harrowing mission to extract on US national from a mission in Africa, and turns into something more complicated and life-affirming. Sometimes it's harder to do the right thing, rather than follow orders and place your well being before others. Honor demands sacrifice.

The performances are all around good, though, the characterization are a little thin (in terms of motivations), but you will get a sense of empathy following the soldiers trying to do their jobs under extreme and tense circumstances, and will care about their fates as the film draws to its conclusion.

I give it 3 stars or a grade of B.

I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed this one. While not exactly up to the level of <i>Black Hawk Down,</i> it had a fairly nice balance of drama and action even if the odds of the protagonists surviving towards the end of the movie was straining credibility. Actually was welling up a few times during this one.

It got better as it went along. Willis is always good. "B-" is my grade.

Loved the Teriminator 3 trailer, thou!

Saw this one tonight.

Liked it quite a bit.

Some tough scenes to watch....but unfortunately true to form.

Recommended but be ready.

Yeah, I am not even going to compare this to BHD. IMO, BHD is a classic in the war/action genre, this one doesn't come close.

First off, I thought it was okay (**1/2/*****). The performances were alright and everything. I was impressed w/ Monica Belluci. Bruce was Bruce and I liked the guys who made up the rest of the SEAL team. But, it didn't do anything fantastic for me. Previous posters said enough: characterizations a little too thin, lacks the heart and soul to be considered a great war/action flick.

I will give Antoine Fuqua :thumbsup: for having the guts to put some very graphic images on screen whereas some other directors would have subtley hinted at it w/out showing it. This movie does a good job of showing the brutal reality of certain parts of Africa.

best line of the film is when Bruce said, "God left Africa a long time ago."

I thought it was a more tense than a film like Black Hawk Down. Doing the right thing over doing the safe thing can sometimes exacts a heavy personal price. I found the soldiers heroic, but their characterizations on the thin side. But, in life, actions speak a lot louder than words, and sometimes that's all there is to the story.

If a policeman shows up to save yourself, you're just glad that he showed up to do his job. Seldom do you care what aftershave he wears, or what he had for breakfast, or that he's married and has 2 kids. What you care about is getting through that day alive and returning to some semblance of normality after the crisis is over.

DO DIE HARD 4 ALREADY!
 

Tears of the Sun tries to hard to be black hawk down
It's not a Good war movie or even a Good action movie! the only reason to ever see this is the very beautiful and talented Monica Bellucci

Bruce Willis your last good movie was 12 Monkeys stop making bad movies and do another DIE HARD before your flipping burgers at planet hollwood with Stallone!

Re: DO DIE HARD 4 ALREADY!
 

What about Sixth Sense and Unbreakable? I thought Unbreakable was great. About Tears, the movie has a lot of cliche's. The ending could have been better. It seemed like they couldn't decide how to end it, should the main characters die or not. The navy seals used really cool tactics though.
I'd give this movie 2 and a half stars or a rating of B

Good movie but a tad to slow to get started.

Monica Bellucci doesn't really float my boat, especially since she seemd almost suicidal in her stubborness. I'd have left her behind the minute she started giving lip about wanting to stay behind, wanting to rest a while etc. etc. -rolleyes-

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the battle between Willis and Antoine Fuqua over the direction of the film. Willis action vehicle vs dramatization of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

I'll be eagerly awaiting Fuqua's directors cut on DVD (hopefully). :)

Well, let me jump on board and say that I too enjoyed this film. I'd give it ***1/2 out of *****.

As others have suggested, it is a bit thin on characterization. I think I'm using the right word in "characterization", as opposed to "character development". There was another thread here that asked about character development etc., and I guess I ought say here what I'm defining the above words as(nothing set in stone about these definitions, I'm just trying to set a difference between them, if there even is a diff):

characterization: lets you know who the character is, going beyond what their motivation(s) are.

In Tears, we simply meet Bruce Willis' character, and are hardly introduced to the team at all. With Black Hawk Down, we had some "down time" with the crew, got to see them as people for a little while. What made me think of Black Hawk Down in this movie is that at times, I couldn't tell who was who amongst Willis' crew. We had no characterization for these people, and so at times I felt a bit distant from them...some scenes that could have had me at tears, found me strangely removed. I felt more compassion etc. towards the doctor and her people (although I too got frustrated when she kept making demands for them to rest etc.).

character development: the progress of the character throughout the picture, or that they change in some way by picture's end. Plenty of character development in this one, in that Willis' character and crew seem to have a change of heart.

Hope these definitions don't cause more confusion instead of clarification...I'm beginning to wonder myself.

I'd think that the theatrical is better. I read on a local article that Antoine wanted Willis and Monica to kiss. Both of the actors did not want to shoot this scene but Antoine still shot it. With the director's cut it will probably be too sappy.

rotfl CLASSIC

I thought Tears Of The Sun was a well done flick. It had some decent action, a good story and was well paced. I can't see all this Black Hawk Down comparisons, as i think they are two completely different movies.. Tears is more about people, moral decisions and the actions we take, whereas Black Hawk Down was more about the actions you're forced into... now, I guess since I didn't find BHD to be all that great, that figures into the equation a bit...it was good but not classic. Tears is no classic either, but I left the theatre feeling satisfied.

I think that if there was some dispute over the final cut of the movie, ie. the direction, I think whoever won the battle made the right choices, since I think this version was fine... I have a feeling the Fuqua version (if indeed those rumours are true) may slightly miss the mark and be a bit too pretentious/predictable and contrived.... This film boosted my confidence in Fuqua, who really needed to prove that he was not a flash in the pan (he's been really hit and miss, with Training Day being his only solid film to date) and I think Tears is a good follow up, and stronger than his last film.

Go see it and judge for yourself... a good movie.

MATT

I think this is probably the best review i've read of it....

http://ae.freep.com/entertainment/ui...reviewId=11400

"If there can be such a thing as a bleeding-heart conservative movie, "Tears of the Sun" is it." Now THAT is Classic rotfl

Re: DO DIE HARD 4 ALREADY!
 

The movie is actually an EXCELLENT war movie & does not try to be an action movie. For pure entertainment value I give the movie a C, but given today's current world situation the movie get's an A. IT is EXACTLY what is going on in Africa & all over the world right now, & as far as I can tell no movie has touched this subject. And the quote at the end of the movie should be commended b/c it is so relevant & true it's scary.

However the movie is also quite sloppy, a Navy Seal would NEVER, & I mean NEVER change the instructions of his mission or stray from his orders.

response
 

Sessa17 - ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS PICK HER UP THROW HER OVER HIS SHOULDER ! JUST LIKE HE DID AT THE END OF THE MOVIE! Insted its an hour of Dragging refugees around the jungle!

matrixrok9 - As far as Unbreakable and the 6th sence are concerned I think M. Knight is a Hack who made it big. He's a bad director but a very good writer. he doesn't have intresting camerawork. An example is his frequent use of 1 camera or Only using 1 angle. Think what other director's would have done with the same material and the same actors. Imagine how good those films would have been if directed by David Fincher or Terry Gilliam.

Re: response
 

That's what I like about M Night's movies. They're slow but it captivates me. He can be good with his camera work if he wants to, look at the train station sequence in Unbreakable. Very cool angles, as well as the editing.

About Tears, wasn't that the point of the movie though. He had a change of heart that's why he saved the refugees. If he did what u said, he wouldn't have saved the refugees. It's an entertaining movie, if you don't take it too seriously. The last 3 minutes was pure cheese though.

Tears for the Audience
 

matrixrok9- There is NO Point to the movie and it makes NO point! I feel this way because the alleged story is totally unrealistic from the start. The whole bit where he lies to the Doc and marches the refugees to the helicopter but saves only the Doctor then changes his mind is ridiculous and is in no way realistic-a navy seal having made a choice like this would never look back but would stay the course-that's why the captain goes down with the ship-when a captain chooses a course for a ship, he doesn't change his mind again and again and zig-zag all over the ocean, but he sticks to his course and is ready to live with the consequences.
What the movie should have done is to have shown the massacre before the rescue of the Dr. while he was flying in to rescue her and then when he landed he could have chosen then to disobey orders and take the Dr. and the refugees to the border. The Truth is the movie too Hollywood! You Can't save everybody and the world is not fair.

Vic,

I understand your point of view. I agree with you that the movie is too hollywood. I disagree with you in that it wasn't entertaining.

I saw the last 20 minutes of this on cable last night. I thought it was fantastic (the last 20 minutes were combat sequences so of course I loved it). It's being shown again at 6:30PM EST tonight (07/28/2003) on cable.

Well, to be fair, the movie was entertaining, but yes, very unrealistic. I have a friend from Nigeria that goes to school here, and he says from what he has heard (he hasn't seen the movie) that the movie seems to be totally unrealistic, he mentioned that Nigeria hadn't been in a civil war in forty years, which just makes everything more confusing for me. He is from Ondo state though.

Also, the movie still is pure Hollywood Hero bull*****. A little something to compensate for doing nothing about the genocide there. It was still moving, thinking back to the Rwanda slaughter and how we did nothing and the Burke quote - something like "Evil prospers when good men do nothing." kind of hit a mark.

Good action flick. The military action was accurate, that's how soldiers move in the field, and I agree with Sessa17, a Navy SEAL is not going to go off mission, for anyone. I watched this movie with a friend from Nigeria. She wept all night.