Just in time for war with Iraq, Tears of the Sun makes the case for military intervention ' not in Iraq, but in Nigeria, where a civil war has taken the smirk right off Bruce Willis' face. He's playing the head of a Navy SEAL unit that's been sent into the Nigerian countryside to "find and extract" an American doctor who happens to look and sound an awful lot like Italian sex symbol Monica Bellucci. The problem is that Bellucci refuses to be found and extracted unless Willis agrees to take her patients with them. The other problem is that Willis, though a stone fortress when we first meet him, develops a soft spot for the good doctor. And the other problem is that the movie, like Willis, can't decide between love and duty.
Hollywood perhaps shouldn't be allowed into international hot spots until they've cooled down a little. Director Antoine Fuqua may well be concerned about the various ethnic conflicts in Africa ' the millions that have died in the name of tribal purity ' but Tears of the Sun feels like a standard action-adventure movie, not a cri de coeur.
