Bruce Willis’ Tears of the Sun was much more popular with audiences than with critics and was saved by its excellent final battle. Bruce Willis’ greatest action movie characters have often had a military or law enforcement background, including Korben Dallas in The 5th Element and the iconic John McClane in the Die Hard franchise. While many of Bruce Willis’ action movies have a funny side, Willis has proven himself a great actor in the more serious and hard-hitting war genre too. That said, he was disappointed with his 2003 movie Tears of the Sun.
Tears of the Sun is about a rescue mission in Nigeria. Willis plays Lieutenant A.K. Waters, whose mission is to lead his Navy SEAL team to a U.S. doctor’s camp and rescue her before the rebels reach her. The production was troubled, with director Antoine Fuqua having a different creative vision for the movie to the studio, and not getting along with Willis. Tears of the Sun may not be one of the best Navy SEAL movies of all time, but it was saved by Willis’ committed performance and a hard-hitting final battle scene.
Tears Of The Sun Is Saved By A Fantastic Final Battle Sequence
Fuqua Clashed With The Studio Over Tears Of The Sun
The action in Tears of the Sun‘s final battle is unrelenting, with the scene crossing several locations and lasting over ten minutes. Though Willis rarely dies in his movies, there are times during which Tears of the Sun looks set to kill his character during this sequence. While Lieutenant Waters survives, Tears of the Sun‘s shocking and brutal final action scene sees many of its main characters die in a hail of gunfire. The film was criticized for its overuse of military tropes, but the final battle scene saved this otherwise forgettable war movie.
Fuqua had intended Tears of the Sun to be an unflinching look at the suffering caused by the African genocide and hired extras who had been affected by it. However, the studio had other ideas. Fuqua told Ain’t It Cool: “It got very real, and… people started saying, ‘Wow, we want to make sure this makes money… it needs to be more of an action movie.'” This creative struggle affected the script, which was not finished when Willis signed on, leading to Tears of the Sun becoming one of the movies that Bruce Willis regretted making.
Tears Of The Sun Would Have Been A Lot Worse Off Without Bruce Willis’ Performance
Bruce Willis Only Starred In Two War Movies (& Neither Were Hits)
Tears of the Sun‘s critical ratings are poor, with just 34% from Rotten Tomatoes critics. However, the movie earned a 69% positive audience review. This is likely due to Willis himself, who might have struggled with Fuqua’s original vision but thrived in the action sequences. Roger Ebert described Tears of the Sun as “a film constructed out of rain, cinematography, and the face of Bruce Willis,” giving the movie three out of four stars. Willis’ action star power was a major draw for Tears of the Sun, and it would have been a worse movie without him.
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Bruce Willis War Movies Reception |
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|---|---|---|---|
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Title |
Year |
Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score |
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score |
|
Hart’s War |
2002 |
60% |
48% |
|
Tears of the Sun |
2003 |
34% |
69% |
While Willis has regularly played former soldiers throughout his career as an action star, he has only starred in two war movies. Bruce Willis’ first war movie was Hart’s War, in which he plays a colonel. The movie is extremely different from Tears of the Sun, but also received mixed reviews. However, Hart’s War was more popular with critics than audiences, while Tears of the Sun is the opposite. The tone of Hart’s War is similar to Fuqua’s plan for Tears of the Sun, and both are worth watching, especially for the battle scenes and Bruce Willis.
Sources: Ain’t It Cool, Roger Ebert
Tears of the Sun is a military action film directed by Antoine Fuqua, featuring Bruce Willis as Lieutenant A.K. Waters. The plot centers on a U.S. Navy SEAL team sent into the Nigerian jungle to rescue Dr. Lena Kendricks, played by Monica Bellucci, amidst a brutal civil war. The mission evolves as Waters encounters moral dilemmas, challenging his orders and sense of duty.
- Release Date
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March 7, 2003
- Runtime
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121 Minutes
- Director
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Antoine Fuqua
- Writers
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Alex Lasker
, Patrick Cirillo