A thoroughly entertaining (and true!) feature about a World War II German prisoner-of-war with a knack for escaping his British captors, The One That Got Away stars Hardy Kruger as Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe officer shot down during the Battle of Britain. Unwilling to spend the next few years peeling potatoes or cracking rocks, von Werra immediately began plotting his return to Germany, and after a few misfires miraculously pulled off the feat after taking a detour to a remote POW camp in Canada. The film defies convention by actually allowing the Bad Guy to outfox the Good Guys and contrasts neatly with more traditional tales of Stalag-bound heroism such as The Colditz Story (1955) and even The Great Escape (1963). It also offered Kruger the opportunity to deliver the performance of a lifetime, highlighted by the final St. Lawrence Seaway sequence in which he brings a lumbering, Frankenstein's Monster demeanour to his character. Additionally, the film benefits immensely from tremendous location footage shot during the dead of winter, as well as the very wise decision to almost entirely fore go incidental music, which lends the film additional realism and allows the viewer to concentrate on the action at hand without being manipulated by the score. Quite simply, this is an excellent film that will stick with you.
Review of The One That Got Away
