Rescue Dawn

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Well, I've been trying to do more of a broad canvass during my K2K, but after watching Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God, I moved his Rescue Dawn up my queue. It's a newer one, so technically it's not part of my K2K... still, I said I'd try not to focus in on particular directors or genres until I felt my broader curiosity had been sated. Oh well.

This is not nearly as crazy or visionary as Aguirre, though it does have it's moments. I expected this to be a harrowing, disturbing tale of survival, but that's not really the case. After a weak first 20 minutes or so, the movie really picks up when Christian Bale's character ends up in a POW camp, where the film becomes a warm, surprisingly funny humanist tale about men bonding in harsh conditions. For an hour or so, then the movie does become something of a harrowing man vs. nature tale, but still told with a lot of humanity and warmth, and not quite the descent into madness I might have expected. And then it has an almost embarrassingly sappy happy ending.

There is a lot of great material in the middle, but the movie is hobbled somewhat by an uninvolving opening and a corny ending. And also, as good as the middle was, it lacks the insane vision of Aguirre and Nosferatu. Perhaps it's not appropriate to this material, but Herzog doesn't really put his unique, crazy stamp on the movie until near the end, and even then it's a bit half-assed compared to his other movies.