Rescue Dawn

Year 2, Day 345 - 12/11/10 - Movie #710

BEFORE: Another Vietnam-era film tonight, then I'm heading back to World War II.

THE PLOT: A US Fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War.

AFTER: A pretty gripping story, made more powerful by its being based on a true story.

It's about the lengths that a soldier will go through to survive in a P.O.W. camp - which I've already seen a bit of in "The Bridge On the River Kwai", but this is an updated version. Here we have the horrors of being denied the basic human necessities, like food and indoor plumbing - plus the mental breakdowns that take place among the prisoners. What happens internally to men in captivity - and do they muster the courage to fight back and escape, or just shut down and become inactive?

The unfortunately-named central character, Dieter Dengler, has to rally the spirits of his fellow prisoners, convince them to help him steal items that he needs to make an escape, and then convince them that they'd be better off in the jungle than in the camp, which turns out to be a tough sell.

Starring Christian Bale (last seen in "Public Enemies"), Steve Zahn (last seen in "That Thing You Do!"), Jeremy Davies, and character actors Zach Grenier (last seen in "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer") and Toby Huss (last seen in "Vegas Vacation")

RATING: 6 out of 10 machetes

The Siege of Firebase Gloria

Year 2, Day 344 - 12/10/10 - Movie #709

BEFORE: I tried to organize the war films by conflict, but there was no way to prevent some co-mingling - so I'm taking a 2-day break from WW2 films to watch a couple of Vietnam films. I got this one to fill the 2nd slot on a DVD with "Full Metal Jacket" - both films starring R. Lee Ermey.

THE PLOT: A tough sergeant and his sidekick roll into a demoralized firebase and proceed to rebuild morale and fortifications in advance of the climactic battle with the VietCong.

AFTER: What elevates a film from a simple war film to something greater? What makes a "Platoon" or a "Hurt Locker"? I'm not sure, but this film hasn't got it. This is pretty basic stuff - and any attempts at drama just seem like over-reaching (and over-acting!).

Based on the release date - 1989 - this was probably made in the wake of "Platoon", with Wings Hauser in a role that seems like a cross between Willem Dafoe's and John McGinley's.

Set during the famous Tet Offensive, the only thing distinguishing about this film is the subtle suggestion that maybe the U.S. soldiers didn't belong in Vietnam - after all, how would American soldiers react to Vietnamese soldiers invading the U.S.? But even if the Viet Cong had a right to defend their country, they choose to do it in this film by firing aimlessly at U.S. copters, and charging into a hail of American bullets. So, really, in the end, no new ground gets covered here. What a shame.

RATING: 3 out of 10 land mines

The Guns of Navarone

Year 2, Day 343 - 12/9/10 - Movie #708

BEFORE: Like "The Bridge on the River Kwai", this is a very long film - about 2 hours 40 min., which makes my decision to use up my free day seem like a smart one. This is another film set in WW2, with another piece of strategic enemy machinery that needs to be destroyed.

THE PLOT: A British team is sent to occupied Greek territory to destroy the massive German gun emplacement that commands a key sea channel.

AFTER: I'm looking for a copy of this film's sequel, "Force 10 from Navarone", which stars Harrison Ford - if I had that, I could have watched back-to-back war films with cast members from "Star Wars" in them.

Still, I've got "Star Wars" on the brain, because a lot of key elements in this film reminded me of pieces of that space saga - I guess war is war, whether it takes place in the Aegean Sea, or in a galaxy far, far away...

Specifically, when the commando squad dressed up like Nazi officers, it reminded me of Luke and Han disguised as Imperial stormtroopers on the Death Star. And when they approach the Nazi-occupied territory in a fishing boat, it reminded me of the rebels approaching the moon of Endor in a stolen Imperial shuttle. When a wounded member of the squad was tortured by the Nazis to reveal the plan, I thought of Princess Leia being tortured to reveal the location of the rebel base - and when the squad knocked down Nazis on motorcycles by using Greek fishing nets, I thought of the Ewoks knocking stormtroopers off of speeder bikes. And finally, setting charges to blow up the guns before the British fleet arrived - how could I not be reminded of the rebels blowing up the Imperial bunker on Endor, to protect the rebel fleet in space?

Let's face it, this movie completely ripped off "Star Wars: A New Hope" and "Return of the Jedi". Don't let the fact that it was made 16 years before the first Star Wars movie fool you...

Starring Gregory Peck (last seen in "The Omen"), David Niven (last seen in "Death on the Nile"), Anthony Quinn (last seen in "Mobsters"), James Darren and Richard Harris (last seen in "Patriot Games").

RATING: 4 out of 10 Greek columns

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Year 2, Day 342 - 12/8/10 - Movie #707

BEFORE: I don't know much about this film, but I know it's based on a book titled "The Bridge OVER the River Kwai". As a trivia geek, I have to know that the difference between "ON" and "OVER" in the title can make all the difference in, say, the Final Jeopardy! Round. Crossing another Oscar winner off the list tonight - Best Picture of 1957. And since I watched two films in the last week starring Ewan MacGregor, tonight I'll watch a war film starring the other Obi-Wan Kenobi, Alec Guinness. More trivia - you can anagram the letters in his name to form the phrase "genuine class".

THE PLOT: A British colonel co-operates to oversee his men's construction of a railway bridge for their captors - while oblivious to a plan by the Allies to destroy it.

AFTER: This film is a testament to the British spirit - the ability to maintain proper decorum and order, even in the worst of situations. In this case, a group of British soldiers is tasked with building a railway bridge - and their commander, Col. Nicholson, (Guinness), locks horns with the commander of the labor camp. Nicholson points out that forcing captured officers to perform manual labor is against the Geneva Conventions, so the officers are thrown into solitary confinement, and the bridge remains unbuilt.

However, the desperate Japanese commander eventually realizes that the imprisoned officers have construction experience, and before you know it, the officers have been released and have formed subcommitees, made time-management studies, and are practically running all phases of construction.

This becomes a rather complex issue - when forced to do manual labor in captivity, how hard should one work? And how well? Does efficiency constitute treason, or self-preservation?

Compare that to the attitude of the Americans in the camp, which is more like "escape, at any cost". The head Yank is played by William Holden (last seen in "Damien: Omen II"), and after defying the odds and escaping the camp, he's sent back on a mission. So the British build a bridge, and the American tries to blow it up - seems about right. The bridge becomes an obvious metaphor for the madness and pointlessness of war...classic.

RATING: 7 out of 10 unmarked graves

Tora! Tora! Tora!

Year 2, Day 341 - 12/7/10 - Movie #706

BEFORE: The IMDB mentioned that several of the actors from "Black Hawk Down" were also in the movie "Pearl Harbor" - most notably, Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore and William Fichtner. Which leads me quite neatly into Pearl Harbor Day, and films about WWII.

THE PLOT: A dramatization of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the series of American blunders that allowed it to happen.

AFTER: This 1970 film covers a lot of the same ground as "From Here to Eternity", which I watched last Dec. 7, and the big-budget "Pearl Harbor" that came along later. Why didn't they wait to make a Pearl Harbor film until special effects got a lot better? I'm kidding - I know that filmmaking is a lot like war, in that you make a film with the special effects you have, rather than the special effects you want.

What's most shocking to me is that a film made in 1970, just a generation removed from World War 2, would so blatantly suggest that the U.S. military was caught by surprise on Dec. 7, 1941. You'd think that the WW2 veterans would still be revered as heroes, and this film seems to want to chip away at that, in a subversive way. Any navy personnel depicted here who spot incoming planes or a Japanese sub are essentially laughed off as either incompetent rookies, or brown-nosers. And the top brass seem to be either bogged down in military procedure, or out on the golf course. Gee, the attack took place on a Sunday morning, but we don't see any military brass attending church - because that really would be heretical.

Again, I'm not obsessed with military films or military history - I know some people who are, and a film like this is probably catnip to them, depicting the inner workings of the army's equipment and procedures... Much like "Black Hawk Down", there are way too many characters to follow - only real gear-heads care about Secretary of State Cordell Hull's meeting with the Japanese foreign minister, or what the Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was doing on that fateful day.

By trying to be all-inclusive, this film made the Pearl Harbor attack boring - at least for the first 2/3 of this film. The whole first hour of this film was a snooze-fest, so I was really looking forward to the excitement of the attack. Which I guess was exciting, but I'm not really an aerial dogfight man either, unless X-Wing and TIE fighters are involved. Different generation, I guess.

This movie was ripe for parody, it really needed someone like Leslie Nielsen or Lloyd Bridges goofing around - "General, it's a telegram from Washington!" "What is it?" "It's the capital of the U.S., but that's not important right now..."

Starring Jason Robards (last seen in "All the President's Men"), Martin Balsam (last seen in "On the Waterfront"), E.G. Marshall (last seen in "Christmas Vacation"), Joseph Cotten (last seen in "Airport '77"), James Whitmore (last seen in "The Majestic"), Richard Anderson, and a cast of thousands.

RATING: 5 out of 10 depth charges (average score: 4 before the attack, 6 during)

Black Hawk Down

Year 2, Day 339 + 340 - 12/5 + 12/6/10 - Movie #705

BEFORE: Well, the big day is fast approaching, and I've got a lot to do to get ready. Of course, I'm talking about the finale of "The Amazing Race" - I've been watching all these movies, and just storing the episodes on VHS - but I hate it when I see the winner of a reality show is announced in a newspaper or magazine (or worse, on Twitter) and I'm not current on the show. So I figure if I start watching 2 episodes a night, starting...um...tomorrow, I just might make it.

Oh, yeah, Christmas is coming up too, so I took some time today to get the bulk of my Christmas cards addressed. We also had some social engagements this weekend - so I'm going to use up my free day, and count this as Sunday AND Monday's movie - which also helps me, in a roundabout way, to organize my war films somewhat chronologically.

THE PLOT: 123 elite U.S. soldiers drop into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis.

AFTER: I admit, I got my wires crossed - I thought this was the film about a helicopter pilot stranded in Bosnia - but I think that's "Behind Enemy Lines". But I taped this one instead and put it on DVD, so I can't unring that bell.

Like last night's film, this movie depicts a recent conflict, with U.S. soldiers in tense, tight situations. But when you add up the chopper pilots, the humvee drivers, the army rangers, and the command forces, there were maybe a few too many characters in this film - it was hard for me to keep track of them all. "The Hurt Locker" accomplished more with less, by focusing on one squad of three men.

I know, it's based on a true story, and there were a certain number of soldiers involved, and there were a lot of different elements - so many that when one of the Black Hawk helicopters gets shot down, the whole operation descends into chaos.

There are probably a bunch of military gearheads who really dig this film, and are willing to rewatch it and spend weeks analyzing it, but I found it mostly confusing and pointless. Or was that a metaphor for war itself?

Starring (and this could take a while...) Josh Hartnett (last seen in "Hollywood Homicide"), Eric Bana (last seen in "The Time Traveler's Wife"), Ewan MacGregor (last seen in "The Men Who Stare at Goats"), Tom Sizemore (last seen in "Heat"), William Fichtner (last heard in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"), Sam Shepard (last seen in "The Right Stuff"), Ron Eldard (last seen in "Sleepers"), Ioan Gruffudd (last seen in "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"), Zeljko Ivanek (last seen in "Live Free or Die Hard"), Jason Isaacs (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"), Jeremy Piven (also last seen in "Heat"), Steven Ford (son of Gerald), and Orlando Bloom. Oh, and Carmine Giovinazzo (Danny from "CSI:NY") was in there too.

RATING: 5 out of 10 gun turrets

The Hurt Locker

Year 2, Day 338 - 12/4/10 - Movie #704

BEFORE: It's time to stop messing around with dark comedies, and movies with people talking about war, and get down to the serious stuff - soldiers in the line of fire. And it's always a banner day when I get to cross an Oscar-winner off my list.

THE PLOT: An elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.

AFTER: This is an honest (?), realistic (?) portrayal of today's type of warfare - in the desert and the streets of Iraq, and filled with tough, tense situations. Defusing bombs is only part of the problem - reading (and misreading) the intentions of the locals is another part. So is a hot-shot Sergeant, who's an expert on the bomb tech, but determined to not play by the rules. Admittedly, the enemy doesn't play by the rules either, and their various I.E.D.'s (improvised explosive devices) make for a deadly game of one-upmanship between the bomb designers and the bomb de-fusers.

The film organizes itself around the last few days in the rotation of Bravo company, and as their time in Iraq winds down, that starts to look like a countdown itself.

I'm going to side with the Oscar voters here, and award high marks for giving average viewers a look at the psychology of someone who repeatedly puts himself into harm's way - without specifically saying (though perhaps implying) that such a person must be damaged goods somehow in order to do that. BUT...

NITPICK POINT: I felt there were a few too many times when the soldiers removed their helmets or other protective gear in tense situations. Sure, it looks very dramatic, but I have to believe that gear is meant to be worn for a reason.

Starring Jeremy Renner (last seen in "The Assassination of Jesse James..."), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "Half Nelson"), Brian Geraghty (last seen in "We Are Marshall"), with cameos from Guy Pearce (last seen in "Bedtime Stories"), David Morse (last seen in "The Crossing Guard"), Ralph Fiennes (last seen in "The Avengers"), and Evangeline Lilly.

RATING: 8 out of 10 pirated DVDs