10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tears of the Sun

I haven’t seen too many excellent war films over the past couple of decades. You can make that double for war movies depicting the tragedies in Africa. Tears of the Sun might not be considered in the same vein of Saving Private Ryan or Platoon, but it’s a much deeper film than meets the eye. The amount of explosions and awesome action might lead you to believe that it’s just another action movie with Navy SEALs running around and murdering dudes but director Antoine Fuqua and his team have created an almost emotionally paralyzing movie about the ethnic cleansing that has been going on in Africa for far too long.

Let’s check in on Tears of the Sun and try to find 10 Things you didn’t know about Tears of the Sun.

1.The title “Tears of the Sun” was actually meant for a different Bruce Willis movie. Word on the street is that it was going to be used for the fourth Die Hard film but Bruce was able to convince them to use it here in return for his commitment to star in the fourth film in the series.

2. The story is based on a mission of the Canadian Joint Task Force Two (JTF2) that took place in Colombia. An ex-member of the commando unit wrote the original story and suggested it when he met the production team of Executive Decision (1996) on a set in Nevada.

3. They wanted to film as much in Africa as possible but filming was done right after 9/11 and it made more sense to keep the cast and crew in a more logistically pleasing place. They did most of the movie in Hawaii. A consultant was brought in to find locations that mirrored what would be in that part of Africa and actors were cast who were from Africa.

4. Filming was done over 3 or 4 days on the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman in 2002. Many of the background personnel were actually sailors and military personnel from the ship. They had unprecedented access to a ship like that during a period of time when all Hell could have broken loose at any time.

5. Director Antoine Fuqua didn’t want to make a pro-war movie or an anti-war movie. It’s more a picture about humanity helping humanity. The ethnic cleansing in Africa is highlighted to show just how atrocious it was. The goodness of the American military is also highlighted to show that the sacrifice of those men and women also had some positive effects on the people that live in those areas.

6. All of the effects were done practically when possible. Fuqua didn’t want to use CG unless he absolutely had to. A stuntman was actually killed during filming when a parachuting stunt ended with him landing 300 yards offshore instead of on the beach.

7. Some of the scenes were so violent and graphic that they had to be cut out. Not necessarily because it was causing the film to have a different rating but because the test audiences were so devastated by some of the scenes that the filmmakers decided against including them. They were trying to walk the very fine line of showing what was going on without causing everyone to have nightmares for the rest of their lives.

8. While the SEALs and the refugees are outside of the village during the ethnic cleansing, the elderly man crying was not planned. The gunfire and screaming caused him to start crying because it was so similar to things that had happened to him in his earlier years. It was something that they had run into several times throughout production.

9. Fuqua wanted to hire as many Africans as possible to play the refugees. It just didn’t seem or feel right to cast non-Africans in the roles. Plus, the past experiences of so many of the Africans added a weight to their performances that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

10. All of the actors portraying the Navy SEALs when through a two week boot camp. The camp was run by SEAL Harry Humphries. They didn’t want to just put them through the ringer, so to speak, but they specifically trained so that the actors could perform the movements that were needed in the film. They used their character names throughout the shoot and the layout of the location and the hot temperatures helped to create a shared shittiness to the situation for all involved. There is nothing like sharing discomfort to bring a group of people together. Willis, Cole Hauser, Johnny Messner, Eamonn Walker, Charles Ingram, Paul Fancis, Chad Smith, and Nick Chinlund form the team of spec ops soldiers dispatched to save the darling Monica Bellucci. The actors pull off the SEALs better than most and I know that I was extremely thankful that douche Mark Wahlberg wasn’t in this one.