When Saving Private Ryan Meets Hotel Rwanda

When I watched Bruce Willis’ action flick, Tears of the Sun, two movies came into my mind: Saving Private Ryan and Hotel Rwanda. Although Tears of the Sun used the same hackneyed storyline of men called to risk their lives to save others as the other two critically acclaimed films, it stood like a B-movie adaptation and looked more like a cut‑and-paste filmmaking feat. From Saving Private Ryan, the script threw in a squad of soldiers who are brave but reluctant to play hero when their mission does not call for it. And from Hotel Rwanda, the film borrowed the element of massive bloodletting, i.e., genocide that seems to be endemic in Africa.

When ethnic animosities flared up in Nigeria and bodies began piling up in the streets, Lt. A.K. Waters (Willis) and his eight-man SEAL team is sent to the bushes to extract Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) and other Americans from a missionary outpost/hospital before their pretty heads are chopped off by marauding soldiers. Their mission seemed to be so humdrum that the commandos were counting to be back to catch a football game, until the lovely doctor refused to come along unless the team takes 70 refugees in the mission with them. Waters grants Kendricks’ wish, but he forces her aboard the rescue helicopter, leaving the ragtag band of Africans to the mercy of their enemies. The team is consumed by guilt when they saw the razed buildings of the mission and the butchered bodies of its occupants. They turn around to lead the refugees out of Nigeria on foot. Pursued by a larger force, Waters and his team are forced to make a stand when they discover that Kendricks’ has hidden the sole survivor of Nigeria’s first family and the last link in a long line of tribal leader in the entourage. Of course, Waters’ decision peeved his boss who is used to seeing him turn a blind eye to carnage if it does not concern his mission. The showdown, as expected, is riddled with action when the SEALS clash with a numerically superior enemy and half of their team will fall in the field. The situation turns desperate until the cavalry arrives and blasts the enemy with cluster bombs. Waters and the surviving, but barely breathing, SEALS are airlifted together with the lovely doctor, leaving the Africans in the safety of a refugee camp.

The film is dragging in the middle, and as an intermission number and to remind the viewer that Waters and his men are killing machines, they get to annihilate a platoon‑sized unit which was too busy sacking a large village that the soldiers did not notice the SEALS until their throats have been slit or they have been shot. And as a bonus, viewers are given a glimpse of some of the Navy SEALS’ tactics, like the peel left and bounding.

Some of the scenes which overemphasized the SEALS heroism should have been cut because there was absolutely no need for them. Waters and his men are heroes, period. Action buffs who expect a lot of action should stay from this film. They should settle for Willis’ Die Hard films because they are loaded with more gunfights than Tears of the Sun. At least, Willis did not play John McClane or Rambo in this film, which is its only saving grace.

-Prospero Pulma Jr.-