Director Antoine Fuquaโs 2003 serious-minded action thriller finds Bruce Willis on good form as a gung-ho US Navy SEAL lieutenant in Africa. But he finds that โGod has already left Africaโ when he leads his unit into Nigeria to rescue gorgeous doctor Monica Bellucci, who is under imminent impending threat from a rebel army. But she wonโt leave unless he disobeys his CO (Tom Skerritt) and saves her patients as well.
While director Fuquaโs gung-ho actioner is being thoughtful and serious, it unfortunately tends to get dour and stodgy. But, as the refugees trek into the jungle towards safety and the battle action kicks in, itโs very capably staged and exciting.
Without his usual smirking, tongue-in-cheek delivery or toupรฉe, Willis looks grim, but thatโs the role, and he plays the troubled hero very credibly and convincingly. Politics, war, religion and American intervention overseas are controversial red-hot potatoes in an uncomfortable and flawed but provocative and electric film, whose screenplay was once intended as Die Hard 4.
Fuqua is the director of Training Day, King Arthur and Olympus Has Fallen (2013).
