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Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) didn’t want to go to war; he just wanted to fly the planes that he’d watched fly overhead when he was a child in Germany. But the US fighter pilot is brought to Vietnam at the beginning of the war, and he’s shot down on his first mission—a highly classified mission into Laos in 1965. He’s captured and tortured—and after he refuses to denounce his country’s actions, he’s tortured some more. Then he’s brought to a small camp, where he’s held with five other prisoners.
Dieter’s fellow prisoners are in various stages of delusion and malnutrition. Gene (Jeremy Davies) has been there for more than two years, but he’s still convinced that they’ll be released any day now. Despite Gene’s ravings, though, Dieter has no intention of sitting around and waiting to be released. So he begins working on an escape plan with the other prisoners—especially Duane (Steve Zahn), who, in his year at the camp, has taken notice of how everything works. Day by day, they prepare for just the right moment, planning each minute detail of their escape and storing up food for their journey through the jungle and back to safety.
Rescue Dawn is based on a true story—and it’s a pretty magnificent story. But the film has its ups and downs. The story has a pretty shaky start—and there really isn’t enough time to get to know much about Dieter before he’s sent into the jungle to fend for himself and fight against an enemy that doesn’t speak his language. Once he arrives at the camp, though, things pick up. There are more characters, and there’s more of a story—and it’s both fascinating and suspenseful to watch Dieter interact with his fellow prisoners and his captors as he plans their escape. But then it’s downhill from there. The longer it goes, the more obscure it gets—and the more the story starts to drag. It gets stranger and more artsy—with strange music that just doesn’t seem to fit—until it finally ends in a strangely ill-fitting, mainstream-film kind of conclusion.
At the same time, though, Rescue Dawn does have its moments of brilliance. The performances are, simply put, stunning—and not just because of the massive weight-loss required. Bale turns in another excellent performance—as does Zahn, who does a great job of proving that he can be more than just another comic sidekick. And some of the cinematography is breathtaking, filled with the landscape shots that director Werner Herzog loves.
But Rescue Dawn isn’t as mainstream as its premise might suggest. Those expecting an action-packed war movie will be disappointed—and, for the most part, pretty bored. It’s somewhat disjointed—and it doesn’t flow as well as it should. Some parts move along well, while others slow to a crawl. And while there are some wonderful moments, I don’t recommend heading to the theater to see it unless you’re prepared to take the good with the bad.
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