by MATTHEW HAYS

War movies occupy an odd place in the Hollywood lexicon. For years, John Wayne personified the flag-waving hero who filled audience eyes with tears as he helped to win WWII. (Many were surprised to learn that in real life, Wayne never actually served in that conflict.)

Things became much, much more complex though, during and after the foreign conflict that tore America apart. Wayne raised some hackles when he came forward as a full supporter of American intervention in Vietnam. Then, after the U.S. withdrawal from the region, came the Hollywood war hangover movies, a sub-genre of regret that included Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Casualties of War.

Since receding into the moral certainty of WWII (witness Saving Private Ryan), Hollywood now seems to have created a whole new brand of war movie: the post-ideological conflict film. Perhaps best personified by last year’s Black Hawk Down, these films purport to show us the horrors of war while painting U.S. soldiers as being either morally neutral or, like Wayne, virtuous and heroic once more.

But for all its efforts at remaining neutral, Tears of the Sun can’t escape its political underpinnings. It suffers from two rather dire drawbacks: its star, Bruce Willis, is famously Republican, fully supporting the Reagan and Bush administrations. And then there’s that nasty issue of timing - certainly, the filmmakers couldn’t have known their project would arrive in cinemas but weeks, if not days, before the U.S. bombing of Iraq would commence. But here it is, and it makes the film stink that much more.

The film has other bad elements, for sure: there’s the dreadful condescension, as folks with black skin in ass-backwards Africa are saved by a chump like Willis. And then there’s that dreadful dialogue. Most depressing is the fact that so many will undoubtedly flock to this film, south of the 49th parallel, and see no contradiction in feeling sorry for the onscreen victims of war while simultaneously supporting the wholesale bombing of Iraq.

A depressing movie, undoubtedly - but for all the wrong reasons. :

Tears of the Sun opens Friday, March 7

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