Tears of the Sun (Blu-ray) (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Audio Commentary-Antoine Fuqua (Director) Audio Commentary-Alex Lasker (Writer), Patrick Cirillo (Writer) Film Factoids Deleted Scenes Trailer-The Da Vinci Code Trailer-Kung Fu Hustle Trailer-Stealth
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	120:55
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Antoine Fuqua
Studio Distributor	Revolution Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Bruce Willis Monica Belucci Cole Hauser Tom Skerritt
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	?	Music	Hans Zimmer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 English Linear PCM 48/16 5.1 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Dutch Arabic Czech Greek Hindi Hungarian Polish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired English Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary English Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary English Information	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

The film begins with a summary of yet another civil war and genocide-in-progress, this one taking place in Nigeria. The Furlani tribe have risen up, deposed the democratically-elected President, and are seemingly intent on murdering every member of the Ibo tribe that they can lay their hands on. Lieutenant A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) and his squad are sent into Nigeria to retrieve an American doctor by the name of Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci). If a trio of Americans among her staff wish to come, then the team's orders are to bring them, too. Long story short, Kendricks refuses to leave without a rather large party of locals who are fleeing the murderous army that has deposed the President. As Waters and his men bring their quarry ever closer to safety in Cameroon, a large portion of the rebel army pursues them in a fashion that leads Waters and his men to conclude that at least one of the people they are escorting must be pretty important.

Not helping matters any is that the finale descends into a by-the-numbers action sequence in which Waters and his unit compete with the rebel battalion to see who can fire the most rounds at each other without scoring too many points for accuracy. Roger Ebert has written that he sensed a certain amount of input from producers, studio executives, story consultants, and other such types who felt it their duty to dumb the film down with a conventional action climax. I must paraphrase him here because after watching it for myself a few times, I can only strongly agree with him. If it were not for a stellar performance from Bruce Willis in which he makes the kind of dialogue that would induce uproarious laughter coming from many another actor seem credible, Tears Of The Sun would have little, if anything, to recommend it. The mind boggles at what the film might have ended with if the conventional action trappings had not got in the way.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed Tears Of The Sun as entertainment, even though the fact track and commentaries make it clear Fuqua and Willis had something higher in mind. It also makes an interesting choice to be among the first films released on Blu-ray Disc within Region B, in light of its failure at the box office. Apparently, a lengthier Director's Cut was released in the US on DVD, but this version has yet to grace the Blu-ray format.

Video

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 within a 1920 by 1080 progressive window.

The foreground of this transfer is sharp. Little details that are impossible to resolve in SD, particularly in the satellite display that keeps Waters and his men aware of the rebel battalion following them, leap out of the screen. In particular, I had forgotten how revolting the severed-breasts shots about sixty-one minutes into the film had been. However, a lot of backgrounds in wide shots have a murky, grainy sort of look. The shadow detail in the small number of sequences that take place at night is very good, and there is no low-level noise.

The colours of the transfer are quite limited but amazingly vivid. As one might expect of a film set in the African jungle, greens and browns are dominant. The greens are vivid and deep, the browns are well-textured, and flesh tones are accurate. No bleeding or misregistration is evident.

Reports have it that the Region A disc features a transfer compressed in MPEG-2. If this transfer uses the same codec, it explains the murky, grainy look of backgrounds to some degree. Not helping matters in that respect is the anamorphic photography in a very difficult environment with rain pouring in many a shot. So long as one is only looking at the foreground, this is an excellent transfer and the compression seems very transparent. Film-to-video artefacts were absent. Film artefacts consisted of small black and white marks on the image that were minor in frequency.

Subtitles are offered in English and English for the Hearing Impaired. The latter are presented in an attractive white font with solid black backgrounds, and are mildly truncated from the spoken dialogue.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

Four soundtracks are presented on this disc. The first, and default, is a Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation of the original English dialogue. The second is a Linear PCM 5.1 version of the original English dialogue. Two audio commentaries in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo are also included.

As has been the case on every disc I have seen to date with Dolby Digital and Linear PCM options, the latter proved more open, with greater separation between the elements.

The dialogue is clear and easy to understand, at least within the limits of Bruce Willis' mild mumble. The SEALs utter a lot of words below their breath, and intelligibility is frequently a problem for them. More important dialogue such as Willis' exchanges with Bellucci are more easily understood. No problems were noted with audio sync.

The music in the film consists of a score by Hans Zimmer. At times, it really begins to resemble the Gladiator soundtrack, especially during the climactic firefight. At other times, percussion and tribal beats form a constant motif. The music suits the onscreen action well, in spite of giving a feeling of having heard this before.

The surround channels are used aggressively but inconsistently. During the climactic gun battle, bullets whiz constantly through the surround channels, providing a real feel of being there. If the entire soundtrack had been this immersive, then it would get a five star rating overall in spite of the aforementioned issues with dialogue intelligibility, which were more by the director's design in the first place. However, during the more dialogue-driven parts of the film, the sound field collapses into stereo. The occasional environmental effect, such as rain or the rustle of leaves, can be heard occasionally during the exposition sequences, but during the first twenty minutes of the film in particular, one can almost be forgiven for thinking this was a film from the early 1990s with a mediocre remix.

The subwoofer is used a little more consistently to support the music or the violence of battle and other such effects. It is well-integrated with the rest of the soundtrack and does not call undue attention to itself.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

A small amount of extras grace this disc.

Menu

Audio Commentary - Antoine Fuqua (Director)

Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, Fuqua talks very extensively and dryly about the influences that went into the production. The references to Apocalypse Now in my review are not just hyperbole, as Fuqua makes comparisons between Willis' character and one Colonel Kurtz. This only brings to mind more questions about what the makers had in mind compared to what the producers and studio heads ordered. The commentary track itself is a little on the dull side, not helped by the lack of any additional participants to keep the momentum going.

Audio Commentary - Alex Lasker (Writer), Patrick Cirillo (Writer)

Titled Writers' Observations in the menus, which also states that the commentary only runs for sixteen minutes and forty-six seconds. Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. Both audio commentaries are presented at a much lower volume than the Linear PCM 5.1 soundtrack. The observations made in this soundtrack are quite interesting, making it a shame that they could not get the writers to sit down and talk for the rest of the running length.

Fact Track

The fifteenth subtitle track on the disc is a graphical track with colour-coded backgrounds and text explaining various facts about the actors, the place the film is set in, and other such tidbits. It is worth looking at for those who want to know what those hand signals frequently used by soldiers in films actually mean.

Deleted Scenes

A collection of deleted scenes presented as a tiny window in the centre of the screen that is 480I and looks like a fifth-generation VHS copy. As a reminder of what I wanted to leave behind on previous formats, these are awesome.

Trailer - The Da Vinci Code

Presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, in high definition, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. For two minutes and twenty-one seconds, the trailer manages to make the film seem a lot more compelling than it really is.

Trailer - Kung Fu Hustle

Presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, in high definition, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio, this one minute and forty-four second trailer gives a good idea of the hilarity of the film.

Trailer - Stealth

Presented in a 2.00:1 aspect ratio, in high definition, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Two minutes and two seconds of banality that makes its inclusion here quite a curious choice.

• English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack
• Trailer - The Da Vinci Code
• Trailer - Kung Fu Hustle
• Trailer - Stealth

The Region B version of this disc misses out on;

• French Linear PCM 5.1 soundtrack
• Trailer - Black Hawk Down
• Trailer - XXX
• Trailer - S.W.A.T.

I think we can call this one fairly even.

The video transfer is excellent.

The audio transfer is good.

The extras are small in number, but their quality is good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall