Director Werner Herzog revisits his favorite theme -- Man going mad in the wilderness -- in "Rescue Dawn," the fictional remake of his own documentary, "Little Dieter Needs to Fly."
Christian Bale plays Dieter Dengler, an American pilot shot down while on a covert bombing mission in Laos in 1965. He's tucked away in a prison camp but plans and executes an escape with the other inmates. Most of the movie is utterly gripping (much of it is also extremely grueling), and Herzog tells the story with his customary lack of editorializing. What I always like about Herzog's films is that he never tries to tell us how we should feel, but rather approaches his stories, whether fictional or no, with an almost journalistic objectivity. However, his instincts fail him in the film's final scenes, and he falls prey to a bombastic Hollywood ending that's at complete odds with the rest of the film or anything else he's ever done, for that matter. For that reason, my mostly positive review of the movie has to come with qualifications.
Bale is remarkable, as usual, as Dengler. He's incapable of giving an ordinary performance, and no matter how good or bad the movie he's in is, you can always count on him to give you something interesting to watch. Steve Zahn plays a hollowed out fellow prisoner who escapes with Dengler and accompanies him on his frantic and nightmarish journey through the jungle, only to meet a shocking end. And an unrecognizable Jeremy Davies gives an off-the-wall performance as a prisoner resistant to Dengler's plan and convinced that they will all be saved by the Americans at any moment.
The jungle settings look stunning. As usual in a Herzog film, the environment is as much a character as any of the actual people on screen, and as Zahn's character says at one point, represents more of a prison to these men than the actual walls and buildings of the prison they're in.
Grade: B+
Christian Bale plays Dieter Dengler, an American pilot shot down while on a covert bombing mission in Laos in 1965. He's tucked away in a prison camp but plans and executes an escape with the other inmates. Most of the movie is utterly gripping (much of it is also extremely grueling), and Herzog tells the story with his customary lack of editorializing. What I always like about Herzog's films is that he never tries to tell us how we should feel, but rather approaches his stories, whether fictional or no, with an almost journalistic objectivity. However, his instincts fail him in the film's final scenes, and he falls prey to a bombastic Hollywood ending that's at complete odds with the rest of the film or anything else he's ever done, for that matter. For that reason, my mostly positive review of the movie has to come with qualifications.
Bale is remarkable, as usual, as Dengler. He's incapable of giving an ordinary performance, and no matter how good or bad the movie he's in is, you can always count on him to give you something interesting to watch. Steve Zahn plays a hollowed out fellow prisoner who escapes with Dengler and accompanies him on his frantic and nightmarish journey through the jungle, only to meet a shocking end. And an unrecognizable Jeremy Davies gives an off-the-wall performance as a prisoner resistant to Dengler's plan and convinced that they will all be saved by the Americans at any moment.
The jungle settings look stunning. As usual in a Herzog film, the environment is as much a character as any of the actual people on screen, and as Zahn's character says at one point, represents more of a prison to these men than the actual walls and buildings of the prison they're in.
Grade: B+