The Great Raid (DVD, 2005, Full Frame)

Director John Dahl switches genres from film noir (THE LAST SEDUCTION, RED ROCK WEST) to military actioner with THE GREAT RAID. Following the 1942 Bataan Death March, thousands of U.S. and Filipino soldiers were imprisoned by the Japanese in a POW camp in Cabantauan in the Philippines. Brutalized, starved, and tortured, the prisoners languished in the camp for nearly three years. But in January 1945, an American battalion, with the help of Filipino guerrillas, planned a daring mission--some called it suicide--to rescue the five hundred U.S. soldiers still alive there. The film is told in glorious detail. The story is based on two books, THE GREAT RAID: RESCUING THE DOOMED GHOSTS OF BATAAN AND CORREGIDOR by William B. Breuer and GHOST SOLDIERS: THE EPIC ACCOUNT OF WORLD WAR II'S GREATEST RESCUE MISSION by Hampton Sides. In addition, several men involved in the raid served as consultants on the project. The result is a thrilling, agonizing, and unforgettable war movie like they used to make in the 1940s and 1950s, a celebration of the human spirit. THE GREAT RAID stars Benjamin Bratt as Lt. Colonel Mucci, an offbeat military man who puts his faith in young Captain Prince (James Franco) to lead the dangerous mission. Among the men imprisoned in the camp are Joseph Fiennes as the ailing Major Gibson and Marton Csokas as Captain Redding, who is always trying to escape. Connie Nielsen adds romantic tension as a war widow smuggling much-needed medicine into the camp.