Tears of the Son
Today my work week begins anew. I had Wednesday and Thursday off. A temporary reprieve from the ignorance and moral depravity of the cyber world that I now patrol. Hell, it still beats taking it in the ear from cranky 40+'ers who're mixing their med's with alcohol and indignant stupidity. Nothing made me happier than finally handing in that damned headset, other than the realization that I was finished talking to those people...
On Wednesday Stephen H. and I went to see Tears of the Sun the war movie starring Bruce Willis as the maverick Navy Seals Commander, who decides to do the right thing. I was drawn to this movie after playing many and many an hour of SOCOM on PSII. Tears is not your typical war movie, it quickly degrades to more of a socially conscious, humanitarian action movie. And It seemed as though the ending was missing the typical American Flag waving motion bit, synonomous with most US propaganda videos.
The movie's plot surrounds a fictional coup against the Nigerian Democracy, and the ethnic cleansing that follows as the new "muslim" regime takes power. Lt Waters (Willis) is forced by his heroic and selfless conscience to go against the rigid mission objectives and to save as many people as possible from certain and brutal death.
Tears of the Sun almost bridges the gap between the grissly war movie and humanitarian documentary genres, but in this case falls short of capturing the true complexity of the stories characters. Instead Tears of the Sun comes off as a generic film with stagnant stereotyped characters.
Credit does go out to the director (Antoine Fuqua) as this film is shot first rate with many excellent fight scenes and excellent use of the Nigerian (Hawaiian) scenery. During one scene however, when Willis is talking (via radio) to his Commander who is standing on the runway aboard a large carrier ship and although this conversation couldn't have lasted more than a minute and a half, 4 jets land, and two jets take off. This was very hard to believe until Steve pointed out that on the commander's very visible watch hands three hours pass during this conversation. Also at the end, you may notice that although, two Hornets take off with not much more than an extra fuel tank, by the time they arrive over Africa they are carrying a full payload of Maverick ATG missles. These few inconsistencies aside, I give it a 3 out of 5 Chufre stars.
Thursday night was left to playing pool with my father, at which I beat him 4 games to 3, and Trivia. Although the Trivia experience was lessened by the fact that I had to sit in the middle of the floor without a surface to drink on, and that some asshole left the outside door open all night. After drinking a few glasses of complimentary beer (thanks Rob) my night was cut short as I had to pick Jane up from work at 12, and go to work myself for 8. Unfortunately I set the snooze wrong this morning, and didn't get to work till nine.
BTW - I get off at 4 of the clock, if anyone is interested in having a game of catch gimme a call or leave a message on the MB, I'll be home and bored all night...
