What's wrong with Christian bale that he loves so much to play with his weight? You think if a role required him to be painfully thin he'd do another straight after rather than fluctuate back and forth. American Psycho buff, The Machinist almost see-through, Batman Begins buff and now Rescue Dawn thin as a fat stick, this guy really does take method acting to a new level but come on Chris this cant be healthy. That said the level of realism, his physique and his acting ability make this a great film. Directed by Werner Herzog, probably best known in this country for documentary 'Grizzly Man', it tells the true story of Lt. Dieter Dengler a US fighter pilot who was shot down over Laos during the Vietnam war and his struggle for survival and rescue against all odds. Initially we meet the boys preparing for the mission and join in with their camaraderie, they take to the skies to start the bombing but all that changes when Dengler's plane is shot and he crash lands in enemy territory. Captured and tortured he is eventually taken to a kind of concentration camp where he bonds with others that share his predicament, together they hatch an escape plan that they hope will eventually see them saved. Ill, without food and water, constantly taunted and beaten the group endure as much as is humanly possible at the hands of their captors. What transcends on the screen is a story of faith, courage, friendship, endurance and sanity which is all played out against the backdrop of the Vietnam jungle. The cinematography is jarringly beautiful which makes the soldiers struggle all the more painful and real. As the group lose their minds and their weight we as an audience get to observe the cabin fever nature of man who without the body's essential needs starts to slowly deteriorate. Equally brutal as it is beautiful, the scenes where they have nothing but meal worms to eat are particularly stomach churning, the film as a whole contains a message that like others before it, 'Touching the Void', 'United 93' etc, can be surprisingly uplifting.
Review of Rescue Dawn
