Bruce Willis, you will remember, showed his true (stars and) stripes when he volunteered to fight for the coalition forces in Iraq (he was deemed too old).

This is the same gung-ho action hero, you may recall, who also inexplicably cancelled flights to Europe following the September 11 terrorist attacks.

So it's heartening to see Bruce leading a posse of crack American Navy SEALs into the African jungle to pluck out a nurse and a trio of clerics after a Nigerian coup.

It doesn't quite go as planned when charity doctor Lena Kendricks (Bellucci) insists that AK (Willis) leads her patients to the safety of the Cameroon border.

He complies...but it turns out to be just a ruse to get Kendricks to the evacuation zone so he can get her choppered out - leaving the rest of the refugees to their fate.

However, when the homebound helicopters fly over the massacre site that was Kendrick's mission hospital, AK has a change of heart.

He turns back and there follows a heart-stopping passage through the jungle as the US troops and the refugees try to stay one step ahead of the pursuing rebel army.

When the scale is kept small, this adrenalin-fuelled game of cat and mouse promises much with AK's motives kept mysteriously hidden.

Unfortunately, they stay that way and the nearest we get to an explanation of this wanton altruism is Bruce glowering into the middle distance.

Fuqua, whose Training Day positively revelled in the corruption of the LAPD, seems to think servants of the US government turn into a cross between the SAS and the Samaritans when posted abroad.

If you're not from the American heartlands, there's also some naff dialogue - one black US soldier gravelly intones "these are my my people too" when charged with saving the hapless natives.

There's also the uneasy fact that it received the full co-operation of the US Navy and Defence Department.

A moral satisfying climax salvages some respectability, but you can't help thinking that the events portrayed have about as much relation to reality as John Wayne to the Wild West.

Tim Evans