The films byline says it all, "He was trained to follow orders. He became a hero by defying them." A small group of highly trained American soldiers are sent into a volatile African country to extract four Americans before cooing guerrilla terrorists kill them.

About half of the film left me frustrated and upset with the choices and actions of the main characters. And then again, the other half held just as many strong moments where the characters rose up beyond what I'd expected of them and fought with such emotion that my throat started to harden.

Then there are some occurrences that flatly don't make sense. Why did the LT. (Willis) lead these people out of a village directly in the direction of the approaching rebel forces? And why did he allow them to take a break on the path itself so that those rebel forces could come within breath earshot? And later we learn something that should have had this band of refugees pinpointed anyway. And then the "All Clear" call, 0.5 seconds after the bad guys step away? And the Captain who goes on deck of an aircraft carrier to make his phone calls while the airplane engines roar. Isn't there a room below deck for that?

It's this sort of scripting that breaks my trust. And generally, I give my trust pretty easily -- I want to be drawn in.

But with the bad comes the good. The combat scenes are strong and hard hitting even if our heroes (for the most part) inexplicably avoid unavoidable cascades of bullet fire. And that one scene in Cameroon ... well, it's extremely emotional and tastefully shot. The film's finest moment.

The film may also beckon a difficult discussion. Namely, while the actions of this one American are in the small picture extremely heroic and indeed, impressively noble and selfless; one could question the consequences on a grander scale. Let's say, one guy shoots your spouse, so you shoot him dead. His brother kills you and your mother and your father, so your brother slaughters his village. Each is avenging rightfully, but in the end ... does it matter the motivation? There are just a lot of dead people. On the other hand, force seemed to do the trick in the case of Nazi Germany. Hmmm, maybe it's possible for us all to use our noodles and figure out a better way to solve our problems than killing people. Ya think?

Yikes, I've strayed from the review. Sorry about that. Bruce is great -- always love him. Music is strong, haunting, emotional. Direction good (liked "Training Day" better). The film is off again, on again. I'll average it to a 'B.'

Very interesting notes: The film was shot in Hawaii, but the extras were from Senegal, The Congo, Kenya, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Sudan. Among the extras were six 'Lost Boys of Sudan' (The survivors of a group of orphan children who escaped a bloody civil war in which 17,000 children trekked for five years across Ethiopia to Kenya.)