The tears of the sunBruce Willis’ underrated war film
In 2003, after its success Training day, director Antoine Fuqua is popular. We find him directing an epic war film, The tears of the sunwith two superstars in the cast: Bruce Willis AND Monica Bellucci. With a very hefty budget of $100 million and a story of survival for a team of Navy SEALs in the jungles of war-torn Nigeria, The tears of the sun has similarities on paper with The fall of the Black Hawk by Ridley Scott, released a year earlier with success.

A US Navy SEAL commando led by Lieutenant Waters (Bruce Willis) is sent on a rescue mission to coup-stricken Nigeria to retrieve doctor and citizen Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) who works in a humanitarian aid village . However, knowing full well that the people living there will most likely be victims of the abuse and genocide perpetrated by the rebels against the Igbo, the doctor refuses to abandon them, which complicates the mission of Lieutenant Waters and his men. ..
When it was released in theaters in March 2003, The tears of the sun is not convincing, accused of being too violent for some and too pro-American for others. Above all, the scenario is considered terrible, too unbalanced between the pure action film and the politically oriented war film. This is because two films are actually competing The tears of the sunthe vision of Bruce Willis and that of Antoine Fuqua.
A very tense shot between Antoine Fuqua and Bruce Willis
As reported in March 2003 in a long article from the Los Angeles Timestitled “A War of Compromise”, the director of The tears of the sun and his star is not not heard at all.
On the one hand, Antoine Fuqua wishes to show the reality of ethnic cleansing in Nigeria and bring his camera to an African continent ravaged by wars. For him, the real story of the film is not the rescue of the character played by Monica Belluci, but the refusal of indifference and the decision of the Navy SEALs to go against their orders to save dozens of villagers from a certain and atrocious death. Initially, none of the Navy SEALs were expected to survive in the film.
On the other hand, Bruce Willis wishes to do The tears of the sun an action film dedicated to American heroism, with a more developed love story between his character and that of Monica Bellucci. In other words, a film in the tradition of those that made him a Hollywood superstar.
As a result, the two men yell at each other and end up never looking into each other’s eyes again. At the end of filming, they both vow that they will never work together again.
Antoine Fuqua frustrated
In an interview conducted in 2007Antoine Fuqua explains his frustration in this way, understanding why he wasn’t able to make the film he wanted.
“There was too much money at stake for it to just be one big story about these people’s plight. And that’s what happened during filming, which is really difficult because you go into a movie trying to say something, and then in the middle of the movie, people change their minds because of business, or they don’t believe that the movie can have success without more action or more heroic things.
I found myself making an action film, which wasn’t what I wanted to do. (…) I got angry, Bruce (Willis) got angry. I actually like Bruce, but we got to a point where it was difficult to work together, because we were making two different films. So what do we do? He is the biggest star. It’s hard to fight against this. People pay to see it.“
Source: Cine Serie

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