Movie: Rescue Dawn

This April, Christian Bale (American Psycho, The Machinist, Batman Begins) stars in Werner Herzog’s Rescue Dawn as U.S. Fighter pilot Dieter Dangler, whose plane is shot down over Laos during the Vietnam War. He is soon captured and subjected to extensive torture – as is the audience, during a difficult first hour that is virtually free of any dialogue whatsoever. The second half of this docu-drama focuses on Dieter’s stay in a prison camp (along with fellow POWs Gene (Jeremy Davies) and Duane (Steve Zahn)), where he devises and ultimately executes a complex escape plan. Rescue Dawn is not a Bruce Willis-style action flick, and it does not even begin to achieve the magnificence of its predecessors, Vietnam classics such as The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now. Bale, Zahn and Davies all give excellent performances against a visually stunning backdrop, but in every other sense Rescue Dawn simply comes up short.

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