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Rescue Dawn 2008
Maverick director Werner Herzog has built a formidable reputation in exploring obsessive characters in gruelling films like Aguirre, The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo and Grizzly Man. These gut-wrenching stories are also about people out of their depth, out of place, and determined to fight impossible odds.
So too with Rescue Dawn, which finds Herzog treading closer to the mainstream than he has before. Christian Bale plays Dieter Dengler, a German-American fighter pilot who was shot down over Laos in 1965. Captured and viciously tortured by the Viet Cong, Dengler seized an opportunity to escape, taking two American POWs with him. Expanding upon his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Herzog once again blurs the line between fiction and reality, while avoiding the obvious temptation to delve into political allegory. (Source: NZ Film Festival)
Starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Galen Yuen
Directed by Werner Herzog ('Grizzly Man', 'Aguirre, The Wrath of God', 'Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht')
Written by Werner Herzog
War, True Story, Drama, Action | 2hr 6mins | Rated (M) | contains violence & offensive language | Origin: USA
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First things first, Rescue Dawn is INSPIRED by actual events. This means that the film is not a verbatim retelling of historical events, but instead a fictionalized narrative with alterations for dramatic effect. I point this out so early because this film has received a critical backlash due to perceived deviations from the truth, as if artistic license somehow became taboo in the realm of movie making. As this is director Werner Herzog’s adaptation of his 1997 character driven documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly, subjectivity was always going to enter into the equation.
Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) is a pilot in the United States armed forces at the dawn of the Vietnam war. He has enlisted not out of patriotism, he is German born, but because he has been captivated by aviation ever since he watched allied fighter pilots bomb his home town in World War 2. Unfortunately, his first mission is a disaster that sees him shot down and confined to a hellish P.O.W camp in the middle of the jungle. His goal becomes to survive, and it is soon clear that the only way this will happen is escaping both the camp and the jungle itself.
It is Herzog’s portrayal of the inhospitable jungle and Dieter’s struggle against it that is the film’s high water mark and the most engrossing passage in his escape. His recent documentaries have masterfully focused on the tension between mankind and nature and again this theme has been explored to its potential. The jungle and all it contains becomes a living, brooding character, as much the antagonist of the piece as the Vietcong and several fantastic visuals hammer this home.
Another of Herzog’s pet tropes, man’s descent into madness, is less convincing than his previous work. Part of this may be due to the performance of Bale, who never seems to really inhabit the character, instead coming across as a Hollywood star hamming it up in a film whose style is more akin to the casual realism of a documentary. Steve Zahn as Duane, his accomplice in escape, is a far more effective personification of escalating cabin fever. The score is also worthy of mention for the haunting atmosphere it creates.
Rescue Dawn represented Herzog’s best chance to upscale from the art house ghetto to the mainstream penthouse and the tacked on, unnecessary ending suggests he may have realized it and, surprisingly for such a steadfastly independent film maker, been motivated by it. It’s a moment of tedium amongst the flashes of brilliance in a film that joins the other enigmatic curiosities which make up his formidable body of work.
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Press Reviews
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Premiere Magazine [USA]
3 3 out of 5 stars
1/2 This is filmmaking that's as rousing as it is strange...
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San Fransisco Chronicle
An old-fashioned prisoner-of-war movie that becomes much more because of writer-director Werner Herzog's admiration for the remarkable true story of its protagonist, Dieter Dengler...
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The Dominion Post [Mathew Davis]
3 3 out of 5 stars
Essentially a classic survival story of bravery and comradeship, Herzog cinematically enthrals with a dark, fear-ridden environment. Unfortunately the "All-American" ending is a bit of a letdown...
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The Hollywood Reporter
Christian Bale plays Dieter Dengler and this is one of the actor's most complex and compelling performances...
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The Lumi?re Reader [Wellington]
Free from documentary restraint (yes, even for Herzog) the master director occasionally overindulges his melodramatic tendencies with the odd scene which could have leapt straight out of An Officer and a Gentleman, or even worse, a Steven Seagal film (see the ‘emotion’ milking in the closing scene if you don’t believe me!) And though it worked in perfectly 90% of the time, I also found Klaus Badelt’s classical-oriented original score, at times, intrusive and inappropriate. But this is the worst that can be said about a film which is better, by far, than many OTT Vietnam War productions...
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The New York Times
For the most part, Rescue Dawn is a marvel: a satisfying genre picture that challenges the viewer’s expectations...
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Variety [USA]
As far as establishing a sense of period goes, Herzog cleaves to a refreshing less-is-more philosophy. This may be the first Vietnam-set film in history not to feature a bar of Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones or indeed any other rock music on its soundtrack...
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