karlmardson
Rescue Dawn is a great tale of a US soldier who is captured by Vietnamese forces after his flying mission fails and he somehow manages to land safety after surviving the crash. It is a great man vs nature film shot in the lush jungles of Thailand using some cool camera techniques. Christian Bale plays the main lead and he goes to such extremes to make the film- something not atypical of him- that you must commend him for it. Werner Herzog is the man behind the camera and this might be his most accessible feature film and as you know- anything with Herzog's name is worth a watch.
nlytnd_1
What a perplexingly weird movie. What makes it even weirder is, it's based on a real person and event. Typically if a movie is based around a real event, the movie goes for more of a realism type approach, but I'm not sure what the the movie was trying to achieve? Did they not want to depress the audience, so they decided to cover this story in a way that the audience wouldn't have to be emotionally impacted by it? Where to begin? When Dieter (Christian Bale) gets captured and brought to the leader (not sure the leaders title). His demeanor was that of a US teenager in Europe for spring break or at least the way movies like to portray American teens over seas. Cocky, like the world owes them something and just immature, whereas I can't imagine anyone in a situation where they were captured acting like that. It gets weirder as it goes into the various torture thing they do to Dieter... it's done in more of a comedic way, rather than upsetting. The fact that it's based on a real person makes me think that no, and someone completely dropped the ball and if I had to guess that someone was Christian Bale. As if he was incapable of playing this role and it came out in more of a dark comedic style. And they went a little over board with the insanity part of it. Then when is friend gets his head hacked off, it's not a sad moment and it isn't sad for Dieter either. Anyways, I give up trying to figure this movie out. It felt as though the movie was on anti depressants.... no emotion whatsoever in reference to things that should have been really upsetting.
Floated2
Rescue Dawn single-minded focus exposes some flaws, such as the film's disinterest in Dengler's captors who are, like Dengler, slowly starving to death and who think they are defending their country. But that focus also makes the story gripping - there is danger everywhere and a sense that Dengler (Christian Bale) is so resourceful that he thinks of almost everything but that it's the "almost" that could get him killed.The film is inspiring and gripping, but it plays it cool. It doesn't pump up Dengler's heroism, for instance, because it knows it doesn't need to. It doesn't strain to make big statements about Vietnam or to assert a political argument because it knows all those arguments have been made.
SnoopyStyle
It's 1965 and nobody thought much of Vietnam. Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) is on his first mission to bomb the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos. He crashes and is captured. He refuses to sign a confession for the Province Governor. He is tortured and sent to a sadistic prison camp in the middle of the jungle. The most sadistic of the guards is Little Hitler. There are prisoners from many places suffering many years. He organizes an escape plan with Duane Martin (Steve Zahn) but Gene DeBruin (Jeremy Davies) opposes the plan.Director Werner Herzog has made a shockingly realistic portrayal of the inhuman conditions. There is a realness to the jungle location and the locals. There are some reported inaccuracies of the real people being portrayed. The movie itself is a well-acted, compelling, awe-inspiring human drama. The acting from everybody is superb. Herzog is brilliant and the movie is impeccable.
AD
