Navy commandos on a mission of mercy in darkest Nigeria: a two-faced action film that wants to salute the might of the American military at the same time as it wants to salute American individualism. (To say nothing -- and the less said the better -- of American conscience and rectitude. ) Even then, it cannot be bothered to individualize anyone but the hero -- the bullet-headed, dagger-eyed Bruce Willis -- and it demands that the chomping-at-the-bit military withhold its support of him (much as in Behind Enemy Lines, not too long before) until the final seconds of the schmaltzy climax, when the swelling music threatens at any moment to break into Barber's Adagio for Strings, and the agonies of our hero and his men ascend past Gethsemane and up toward Calvary, and every last drop of blood has been squeezed from every stone. Then, and only then, come the shrieking iron birds (hooray) and the blossoms of fire (yippee). Notwithstanding the show of concern over the plight of the natives (director Antoine Fuqua, of Training Day, has at least the seeds of a reputation to water), the movie's foremost concern is its visual voluptuousness: the glistening lacquer of perspiration on the players, the jungle chiaroscuro, the shades-of-green coloristic studies. The earnestness literally gets lost in the foliage. With Monica Bellucci, Cole Hauser, Tom Skerritt. (2003) — Duncan Shepherd
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