A little bit of explanation: ‘Movie Match’ is a column I started back in fall 2006 in PLAY Magazine, where every week I pick a new release that’s looking good at the box office – or one that, at least, looks like it’s going to be a decent-sized hit – and match it up with another film available on DVD. The older movie might be from the same star or director, or it could just have a similar plot, style, perspective, or whatever; either way, the idea is to shed a little light on movies either a few years old or unjustly under-exposed that are still worth a look. Back when I was developing my taste in music, I discovered a lot of bands based on the “recommended if you like” concept (and still do, all the time), so I thought it might be interesting to apply it to movies, too. Generally, I try not to write about anything so obscure that it can’t be picked up at your local brick-and-mortar rental place, but as a recent convert to online rentals, I will say that those outfits won’t ever let you down in terms of selection.

If all continues to go according to plan, you’ll see another entry like this one right here every Tuesday.



If you had asked me two years ago which pre-1990s movie franchises had absolutely, positively zero chance of returning to the big screen, I think the Rambo series would have been right up there with Teen Wolf and Police Academy.

But then, of course, Rocky Balboa happened, and now Sylvester Stallone has seen fit bring back his other heroic – if sort of inarticulate – Reagan-era action icon, in a new film that sends Rambo on a mission to Burma (presumably without an accompanying soundtrack by Mission of Burma) to rescue some kidnapped aid workers and, oh yeah, kill people by the mega-crapload.

And you know what? I’m totally okay with all that.

I mean, sure, John Rambo is a relic, but after years of seeing super-slick, well-spoken, GQ heroes like Jason Bourne battling equally sophisticated villains onscreen, I think the time may be right to bring back the down ‘n dirty, meat-and-potatoes kind of action the Rambo series was all about. Especially since, you might remember, the last time Hollywood pulled an aging action star off the bench for a little rumble in the jungle, the results were actually pretty good.

Bruce Willis was the guy, and the Nigeria-set Tears of the Sun was the movie. And although it didn’t reap the same kind of blockbuster success as the Rambo franchise, the film proved that a fiftysomething star could blow stuff up just as convincingly as all the young bucks.

Willis stars as Navy SEAL A.K. Waters (we never do learn what those assault rifle-esque initials actually stand for), leader of a crack seven-man squad renowned for its ability to carry out orders with ruthless efficiency. Their latest assignment has them deployed to horrifically war-torn Nigeria to extract an American-affiliated doctor (Monica Bellucci) before a rebel death squad – whose associates have just murdered the president’s entire family – can descend on the remote Catholic hospital where she’s been working.

Things go awry not because the rebels arrive before Willis’s men do, but because Bellucci insists she won’t leave without bringing the hospital’s several dozen patients along with her. Willis, despite being such a hardass that he speaks mostly in imperative sentences of two words or less, finally caves to her demands – though his C.O. (Tom Skerritt), aboard an aircraft carrier off the African coast, refuses to send helicopters to pick the refugees up.

The majority of the movie plays out as a somber, scary game of cat-and-mouse, with Willis and his team leading the wounded and slow-moving refugees through the rainforest to the safety of the Cameroonian border, with the murderously rebels constantly breathing down their necks. It’s an uncomplicated but solid setup, and action vet Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Replacement Killers) does a bang-up job at making the jungle seem bristling with unseen dangers; the film’s first half is deliberately paced and impressively suspenseful, eschewing firefights for tense hide-and-seek sequences and none-too-subtle indications that the mission is going to end up dangerously FUBAR.

If you’re guessing that over the course of the film Willis gradually transforms from a hardened, duty-bound career soldier into a more sensitive, caring – but still ass-kicking – dude, well, you’re right. But while the film never quite delivers the mix of social consciousness and hard-hitting action it promises – it’s much more successful on the latter front – it does come off as a touch deeper than the average Hollywood shoot-‘em-up, and manages to avoid at least as many clichés as it includes (thankfully, Willis and Bellucci don’t end up making kissy-face in the midst of all the genocide).

The script, by Alex Lasker and Patrick Cirillo, could have used a touch more detail about the real-world conflict that the film is based around, but on the other hand it’s actually pretty compelling to be along for the ride almost exclusively with Willis and his team, who – initially, at least – are only interested in completing the mission and not getting shot to pieces. It’s true, the film occasionally borders on the exploitative with its brutal imagery of innocents being butchered by the rebels, way beyond what you’d expect in your average action movie. Still, Tears of the Sun is nothing if not well-intentioned, a film that – like Black Hawk Down and last year’s The Kingdom – at least attempts to advance a humanitarian message while still providing the kind of bloodshed that keeps action fans’ asses in the seats.

As for Willis, he acclimates himself nicely to a character that doesn’t get to throw out wisecracks every time he waxes a bad guy, and his age is never a distraction; this is the movie that proved to me that a fourth Die Hard, which we eventually got last summer, was a viable idea.

If the Rambo trailers are any indication, Stallone shouldn’t have much trouble following suit – and here’s hoping that the more recent crop of action-flick ass-kickers, Jason Statham and Gerard Butler and all the rest, can age as well as these guys did.