Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Library Video of the Week, January 21, 2013.

Tears of the Sun, starring Bruce Willis, Monica Belluci, Cole Hauser, Eammon Walker.  Directed by Antoine Fuqua. 2003. Library Call Number: PN1995.9.W3T43 2005.
          Critics weren’t kind to this movie when it came out, for some reason.  Maybe it seemed too dark, or disjointed.  Certainly there is a sharp break from the beginning half of the movie to the battles at the end.  Willis stars as Lieutenant Waters, a Navy SEAL who leads his team into the Nigerian jungle to save four American doctors and nurses from being killed by one side of a raging civil war.  The doctor, however, won’t go without her patients, so the SEALs involuntarily force her and the others onto the helicopter for extraction.
On the way out, Waters sees the advancing army burning and murdering as it comes.  Suffering a sudden pang of conscience, he decides to do the right thing, turns the helicopters around and lands to protect the 70 or so refugees from the hospital.  His superiors, however, will not send the copters back, forcing the SEALs, the American medical staff and the refugees to flee on foot to safety in Cameroon, pursued by an overwhelming force.  The dialog might be standard and the battles seem like Hollywood intruding on a thoughtful movie, but the tone and scenes, the camera-work and the emotional weight of the characters are all remarkable

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