Tears of the Sun (DVD)

This movie is a tear-jerker war action thriller where you feel for the helpless victims, the people being rescued and the American soldiers that are giving their all to protect them. The premise is a simple one, a female American doctor, a priest and two nuns run a health clinic in rural Nigeria. There has been a very violent coup and the forces of the new rulers are brutally killing all who are even remotely in opposition. That includes the people that run the clinic. Bruce Willis plays A. K. Waters, the leader of a Navy SEAL team that is sent to the clinic in order to extract the four people. While his mission is very dangerous, it is straightforward. They need to find the people to be extracted, take them to the rendezvous point (LZ) and be helicoptered to safety aboard the home base aircraft carrier. However, the mission is modified to include the locals that are capable of traveling on foot. The priest and the nuns refuse to leave. Their band travels through the jungle to the LZ and the military unit, the doctor and what locals can be loaded lift off. When they are in the air, they see the health clinic has been attacked and all people there killed. This leads Waters to order the helicopters back to the LZ, where they pick up 12 of the refugees and take them to the carrier. While there is some intense war action and brutal treatment of villagers, there are also moments of tenderness between the soldiers and their rising determination to protect the locals, no matter the cost. There are scenes when an American soldier ruthlessly cuts the throat of an enemy and then expresses empathy towards the female villager being attacked. At first the relationship between the doctor and Waters is one of hostility, but over time she realizes that he and his men are people of integrity and that they are worthy of her respect. This is a great action movie, for it shows many sides of the soldiers, their loyalty to each other and their willingness to put themselves at great risk in order to do what they believe is right.