Mission of conscience

I can think of few actors for whom the overused phrase "criminally underrated" really fits. It fits Bruce Willis like a groom’s tuxedo on his wedding day.

I mean, what does the dude have to do to earn a little respect? I think the pride of Penn’s Grove, N.J., will have to wait a little longer for his Oscar. Meanwhile, you can see him act up a storm in the uneven but still decent Tears of the Sun, Antoine Fuqua’s follow-up to Training Day (2001).

Willis stars as Lt. A.K. Waters, the head of a Navy SEAL unit ordered to enter a remote section of war-stricken Nigeria to save an American woman, Dr. Lena Hendricks (Monica Bellucci), who runs a mission in the area. But when Waters and his men arrive, they find that Hendricks won’t leave without the refugees for whom she cares. Hendricks is faced with the age-old dilemma of following orders or "doing the right thing."

Willis’ performance is almost a textbook example of what makes him such a good film actor. He doesn’t have a false move in him. I don’t know if this is one of his better performances, but it’s pretty darn close.

Comparisons to Black Hawk Down will no doubt arise. Both movies take place in Africa and involve rescue missions that go awry, although Black Hawk Downs true story of a doomed operation in Somalia ends far more tragically.

A better comparison might be Three Kings, the George Clooney vehicle about soldiers dodging violence in post-war Iraq. Although Tears of the Sun does not share Three Kings‘ darkly comic sensibility, the stories are somewhat similar. Seasoned combat veterans are ordered into a Third World country for a fairly routine rescue mission. Instead, they are confronted with horrors that even thick-skinned warriors like themselves find hard to stomach.

There are more than a few moments when Tears of the Sun works. At one point, Waters and his men come upon a massacre of a small village and are faced with a choice. This is not their war, but can they sit by and watch? It is a very well-done, affecting sequence.

However, the movie is far too disjointed to come together as a whole. It seems to lose its way more than once and doesn’t have a consistent thread. There are times when it easily could be a Western — all you would have to do is substitute hostile Apaches for the hostile Nigerian forces that are pursuing the group. Other times, it actually veers dangerously close to melodrama.

In film, as in life, there are times when the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. That seems to be the case here. Fuqua might just have a great film in him, but this isn’t it. The director does have an excellent way with the medium and the visuals are often stunning, thanks in no small part to Carlo Fiore’s cinematography and the Hawaiian locations. Here’s looking to Fuqua’s next movie. And Willis’.

Tears of the Sun
Opening tomorrow at area theaters
R
Two-and-a-half reels out of four


Lucas
PG-13
For sale at a special low price starting Tuesday

For anyone who has been, ahem, "lucky" enough to catch the scarily goofy Corey Feldman on the WB’s The Surreal Life, they might have forgotten that in the 1980s, Feldman actually could act. So could the other Corey, Corey Haim, Feldman’s good buddy and costar in seven movies. Haim was quite memorable playing a nerdy prodigy trying to adjust in David Seltzer’s sweet, funny, but totally unsentimental Lucas (1986). If you look carefully, you can see Winona Ryder in her film debut (no, she doesn’t play a shoplifter). SPR