Scene of the Week: Tears of the Sun – Village Rescue
There are plenty of reasons why I love Tears of the Sun. It has a stunning amount of similarities to my favorite movie of all time, Predator, with the obvious omission of one essential character. Other than that, though, Bruce Willis and his SEAL Team find themselves in a very similar situation to Dutch and his rescue team in the 1987 classic.
One thing that Tears of the Sun has that Predator can’t come close to is its gut-wrenching realism toward the scars of war. Holy crap! Tears of the Sun doesn’t need to tell you about the emotional damages that one might have after living through these kinds of situations because we can see it written all over the faces of the actors. And I’m not just talking about the stoic performances by Bruce Willis and his Team but most of the story is driven by the refugees that are being led from Point A to Point B. I love when action films have plots that are simple and while “SEAL Team attempts to rescue villagers from war torn Africa” is pretty darn simple, one could easily dig deep into the hundreds of years of post-colonial history to discover why these situations exist in this part of the world. Or, you could just as easily enjoy this movie for its outstanding action sequences and crisp direction.
No matter how you decide to view Tears of the Sun, it’s an incredibly powerful portrait of the toll of warfare in Africa on the civilian population and it just so happens to be expertly directed by Antoine Fuqua and star one of the greatest action stars in history in Bruce Willis. If you haven’t watched it recently, I think it’s time for a re-visit.
