|
THE GREAT RAID Send This Review to a Friend
With “The Great Raid” we’re back in the World War II war picture mold, like the old films ground out to glorify action heroism in the face of the nasty enemy. Directed by John Dahl, this one is based on the true story of a rescue operation as the war in the Pacific was drawing to an end. The mission was to save some 500 prisoners of the Japanese in the Philippines from death at the hands of their captors.
The problem is that “The Great Raid” lacks artistry and has no star charisma. Benjamin Bratt, playing a key figure in the operation, is no John Wayne. Who is? But this is a film that requires either that kind of personality or the filmmaking know-how of a Spielberg. The result is that the story, scripted by Carol Bernard and Doug Miro and based on two books, “The Great Raid on Cabanatuuan” by William B. Breuer, and “Ghost Soldiers” by Hampton Sides, unfolds with routine action flick effect. One can become perfunctorily involved in the tale and the fireworks, but not more than that.
There are the usual Japanese enemy clichés. There is, of course, a woman—in this case Connie Nielsen as Margaret, a heroic aid worker and underground figure who smuggles medicine into the camps at great risk. There is the requisite love story between her and Joseph Fiennes as a malaria-ridden prisoner who is fighting survival. Meanwhile the troops are subjected to the Japanese brutality, with random executions in reprisal for those who try to escape, and that requires an evil Japanese commander.
Will the plan by James Franco as a smart army captain work in time for the troops to free the prisoners before the Japanese can kill them? Will the lovers survive to be reunited?
It is important to remember the heroism involved in World War II and what the costs were, and no matter what one thinks of what’s happening in Iraq, the film makes one think of what our soldiers today are enduring in good faith through no fault of their own. But “The Great Raid,” for all the effort and expense making it, doesn’t rise above the ordinary. A Miramax Films release.
|