Tears of the Sun is a 2003 American action war drama film depicting a U.S. Navy SEAL team rescue mission amidst the civil war in Nigeria. LT A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) commands the team sent to rescue U.S. citizen Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) from the civil war en route to her jungle hospital. The film was directed by Antoine Fuqua.

Willis produced Tears of the Sun through Cheyenne Enterprises, his production company, and took the title from an early sub–title for Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth film in the Die Hard series. He filmed the sequel on the condition that he could use its sub-title for his SEALs war film. The cast of Tears of the Sun features refugees portrayed by true African refugees living in the United States.

Plot

Turmoil erupts in Nigeria following a military coup d'etat, which sees the brutal murder of the president and his family. As foreign nationals are evacuated from the country, Lieutenant A.K. Waters (Bruce Willis) and his U.S. Navy SEAL detachment Zee (Eamonn Walker), Slo (Nick Chinlund), Red (Cole Hauser), Lake (Johnny Messner), Silk (Charles Ingram), Doc (Paul Francis), and Flea (Chad Smith), aboard the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, are dispatched by Captain Bill Rhodes (Tom Skerritt) to extract a "critical persona," one Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci), a U.S. citizen by marriage. Their secondary mission is to extract the mission priest (Pierrino Mascarino) and two nuns (Fionnula Flanagan & Cornelia Hayes O'Herlihy), should they choose to come.