‘Blackhawk Down’ was a book and movie based on a historical event. ‘Tears of the Sun’ seems to want to be a hero/action movie which decided to take place in war torn Nigeria.

Some may say that it’s based on the Biafran War, but the whole idea of the rescue mission is fictional. A movie about the Red Cross doctors who served during the war and later went on to form Doctor’s Without Borders would have been very interesting, but certainly wouldn’t be staring Bruce Willis.

A two hour movie about modern day Darfur would be very moving, but again, there wouldn’t be a story about the Navy Seals being there, and there wouldn’t be a role for Bruce Willis.

The movie ends with the quote by Edmund Burke

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

While I agree with the quote, I don’t think this movie did anything to raise awareness of anything, but rather cause confusion, or make us think that the U.S. military is doing something to help to genocide in Africa. It doesn’t help that the movie is set in Nigeria, which has had civil war and terrible atrocities occurring, but is now a relatively peaceful nation which is best known for the various email scams they send out. Certainly this film doesn’t help our view of modern day Nigeria.

This film attempts to be “Black Hawk Down”, “Hotel Rwanda”, “Heartbreak Ridge”, and “Rambo”. Unfortunately, it was none of these and was rather disappointing.