Movie Review: Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn was directed by Werner Herzog and stars Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, and Jeremy Davies. The movie is an account of a downed pilot who must survive a POW camp in Vietnam and most importantly survive an escape attempt from the camp.

Christian Bale in the lead role is as interesting as ever, and shows yet more range in his professional skills. I'm not sure if he nailed the accent or not, he sounded kind of funny. Actually I had to watch the movie with subtitles on because all of the actors were speaking in hushed tones and mumbles and I could not understand a word they were saying. Steve Zahn and the others do a fine job as well.

The story itself reeks of PG-13isms. What I mean by that is that the torture scenarios and overall experience the character has going through the film don't come off as so brutal or harsh. Perhaps one doesn't need to go R and get too graphic, but the ending was a bit too joyous for me considering all of the hardships and darkness explored just previously. Sure, he had a hornets nest tied to his face and etc, but he just seems to shrug it all off and I just did not fully get the feeling that the horrors were as horrible as they really were.

Overall, if we are to trust anyone to bring the story of Rescue Dawn to it should be director Herzog due to his previous documentary work involving the real man Rescue Dawn is based off of.

The acting is interesting, though accents are not the greatest, the story is entertaining and captures your attention, it could have gone a bit darker still, but overall Rescue Dawn is a good movie for a rent...and that's all I have to say about that.