No doubt about it; Bruce Willis has a cinematic head. As Navy Seal Lieutenant A.K. Waters in Antoine Fuqua’s slick and manipulative film, he never wears a helmet or hat — instead his shaved, monolithic dome gleams with camouflaged paint, sweat, and pained resolve. It looks at times like Marlon Brando’s looming pate in Apocalypse Now, at other times like a new entry on Mount Rushmore.

As you’d expect, his performance works better when he acts less like Brando and more like a national monument. A.K. and his team have strict orders to extract Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) before bloodthirsty rebels overrun her medical mission in Nigeria. Lena refuses to go unless the natives seeking refuge at the mission are included. A.K. humors her and lets the refugees tag along; he’s planning to ditch them when the helicopters arrive for evacuation. But then he has second thoughts. Why? Because he sees dead people — hundreds butchered in a Rwanda-style massacre? Because he gets the hots for the busty Lena, who’s shown in cleavage-baring décolletage? No, the reason A.K. changes his mind is so audiences can enjoy the spectacle of the good guys kicking the evildoers’ asses. Less thoughtful than Three Kings, less apathetic than Black Hawk Down, Tears is all too timely: foreign policy as revenge movie. (118 minutes)