sddavis63 After the American evacuation of the Philippines following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, thousands of American servicemen were abandoned to the Japanese enemy, finding themselves facing brutal conditions in Japanese POW camps, and feeling forgotten by their country. "The Great Raid" is the portrayal of a rescue mission to save five hundred of those POWs at the Cabanatuan camp before they're killed by their captors, as the Americans begin to close in during the closing days of the war.As far as I can recall there haven't been very many movies depicting conditions in Japanese POW camps. "Bridge On The River Kwai" springs to mind, but this is the only other one I think I've come across. It's always hard to judge the accuracy of how the enemy is portrayed in a movie like this. In this case, though, we do know that the Japanese were in fact brutal captors. Surrender was the ultimate dishonour, and prisoners, therefore, were seen as deserving of neither honour nor respect. The conditions portrayed in the camp, therefore, were believable and probably historically accurate.The portrayal of camp conditions is one of the highlights of the movie. The other is the actual raid carried out. It was portrayed in great detail and, again, in a very believable way. The basic problem with this movie, though, is that it repeatedly seems to get bogged down. Frankly, when the movie strays from those two subjects it just isn't that interesting, and all the various sidebars end up making this longer than it needed to be. The character of Margaret Utinski (played by Connie Nielsen) was especially problematic. Utinski was a real person - and a winner of the Medal of Honour - but there are historical questions about her life, and there was certainly no romance involved in her actions, as is suggested throughout the movie. Aside from Nielsen, the cast were fine, but in all honesty no one stood out to me as outstanding. As I've suggested, there are certainly aspects of this movie that make it worthwhile viewing, but it certainly can't be mistaken for a masterpiece. (6/10)

The_Other_Snowman "The Great Raid" followed on the heels of other popular war films like "Saving Private Ryan", "The Thin Red Line", and "Pearl Harbor" that hit cinemas around the turn of the century. Its aim is more educational: it takes fewer creative liberties, and revels in detail -- not only is there a narrator, but helpful captions pop up on screen to inform you of the location of every scene, as you might expect from a documentary. The writers expended so much effort on getting the details right that they forgot about the characters of their story.The first two thirds of the movie tell three interconnected stories. There are the American prisoners of war in the Philippines prison camp, suffering and starving at the hands of their brutal Japanese captors. There's the attractive blonde nurse (Connie Nielsen) smuggling quinine into the prison and trying to avoid Japanese soldiers in Manila. Finally there's James Franco and his unit of US Army rangers planning a raid to liberate the POWs. The historical veracity of these scenes has been lauded by the type of people interested in that sort of thing.So far the movie is largely about suffering: prisoners are executed in several horrible ways, and suspected members of the Filipino underground are rounded up and shot. (Many of them get killed trying to save Connie Nielsen, who, being tall and blonde, is more important to the film than they are). Meanwhile the whole thing is photographed in a dull, sepia-toned style well-suited to a Fourth of July weekend broadcast on The History Channel or Lifetime. The music, in what has become the standard for modern war movies, consists largely of a brass band playing somber variations on "Taps" and Aaron Copeland.Once our heroes reach the POW camp the movie's documentary approach remains unchanged, though its focus shifts: now we get to watch the Rangers shoot the Japanese prison guards, which they do for about twenty minutes while the music tries to trick you into feeling excited. There's nothing exciting about this at all. All you're doing is watching people get shot and killed. I don't feel like I've learned anything about the war or the Philippines or the raid itself -- at least, nothing more than I could have read about on Wikipedia. The movie tells you "These things happened", but it doesn't get you involved in the story or the people. Maybe a few creative liberties would have gone a long way -- or perhaps just a writer and a director not so committed to saluting their subjects.One last note: the events depicted occurred almost sixty years before the movie was made. Do the scenes of torture and violence serve an educational purpose, or do they just keep alive the poisonous feelings of nationalism and hatred that led to those events in the first place?

sprtpilot What would the result be if they made a war movie where all the actors were heavily sedated during production? Now we know! Even calling this drivel a "war movie" is a travesty. And what was the budget for this thing? Like two million? With zero for the writers? If you try to watch this without the benefit of a fast forward function, good luck to you. In fact, you can watch the entire thing while in fast forward. At that rate, it almost appears as if there is some action (but not much). Much, much better movies have been made portraying the Phillipine theatre of conflict in WWII and even the sub-set of American POWs there has been done quite well, so what was the point of this mish mash?

Desertman84 The Great Raid is a World War II film about the Raid at Cabanatuan that located in the Philippines.It was adapted from William Breuer's book of the same name.It stars Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes, James Franco, Connie Nielsen, Motoki Kobayashi and Filipino actor,Cesar Montano. It tells the story of the liberation of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp by the US Military with the help of Filipino guerrillas.It is directed by John Dahl.During the waning days of World War II,General Douglas MacArthur chose to make good on a pledge that he made in 1942 that he would return to the Philippines after he and his troops were forced to retreat. However, MacArthur's determination was more than a matter of pride. Over 500 American soldiers were being held in Cabanatuan, a notoriously brutal prisoner of war camp in the Philippines operated by the Japanese army, and MacArthur wanted to see to it that they made it home. MacArthur chose Lt. Col. Henry Mucci to lead the Sixth Ranger Battalion on a mission 30 miles behind enemy lines to infiltrate Cabanatuan and liberate the American prisoners. With the help of Capt. Prince, Mucci leads his men on a life-or-death raid against forces known for their savagery with the help of Filipino guerrillas.The conclusion of the movie,which was the raid of the prison camp,was well-done by the filmmakers.Unfortunately,the film ran too long due to many subplots such as a love story before the raid.Had the film just focused on what it was suppose to be,it could have been shorter and probably would have become a brilliant film.The performances of the cast were worthy of merit especially Filipino actor,Cesar Montano in his first Hollywood film.In summary,The Great Raid would have become a great film had it focused on the raid itself.