Interesting moments and a good performance help this aimless movie but ultimately it is still rather dry and toneless. Christian Bale (Batman Begins) portrays Dieter, a US fighter pilot who is shot down and taken prisoner in a jungle POW camp in Vietnam. Bale is as intense as ever and gives a notable performance. His supporting cast Steve Zahn (Sahara) and Jeremy Davies (Saving Private Ryan) both seem like they're mimicking someone else's performance. Each has a character who has been wallowing in a dank prisoner camp for years and have lost hope. Both actors can't muster believable performances showing the psychological strain of their characters. The off kilter performances combined with Werner Herzog's emotionless directing saps this movie of any feeling of depth or meaning.

At its heart, this is a traditional prisoner of war movie and there are no surprises or original angles. Perhaps I'm a tad jaded from years of watching movies and seeing a dozen movies just like this one, but yeah, I get it - POW camps in Asia and the Pacific are horrible places. Beyond showing us how hard life is in a POW camp, Herzog has nothing else to say. These men are in one of the most intense psychological pressure cookers imaginable and Herzog fails to show it. This is like leading us to the shore of the ocean and explaining the water is cold but then failing to explain the beauty and danger of the ecosystem under the waves. There's a whole world there and its not interesting enough to him to show it. The resolution of the film comes predictably and without any great sense of triumph.

I understand that as a film geek I'm supposed to cheer any time Herzog (Grizzly Man) gets anything on film. The slavish clamoring to applaud this particular film is misguided. I advise you to skip this film and find something else to watch. POW films are depressing and hard to see. If the director is going to ask us to watch people being tortured and our heroic servicemen suffer, they better make absolutely certain their film is top notch - not a listless bore like this one.


Related Reviews:
Werner Herzog movies
Aguirre: The Wraith of God (1972)
Grizzly Man (2005)


Other Critic's Reviews:
DVD Verdict
Monsters & Critics