Rescue Dawn

Pros: Good acting, based on a real-life hero, touching, inspiring.
Cons: Slow at times

I watched this movie, thinking that it would involve a lot of action and Christian Bale kicking butt throughout the film. This film took me through several emotions: bored, frightened, shocked, humor-filled, intrigued and so on. What first got me to even ...

Pros: Great story, great acting, great suspense, great movie.
Cons: Steve Zahn has a role in this movie.

This movie is awesome! The movie is about a pilot that is trapped behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War and is thrown into a POW camp along with other prisoners that have been there for years. It is based on a true story and it really opens your ...

Pros: Very well told story with a gripping plot and excellent performances.
Cons: the story in the second half moves on a slow pace

Christian Bale is one of my favorite actors and I don't miss many of his movies. I watched this movie only for him but it is worth more than that. Werner Herzog, a very capable director, directed this movie and it is one of his best movies. It has a very ...

Pros: Good supporting actors, some nice camera work.
Cons: Doesn't communicate the horror of SouthEast Asian POW camps. Deer Hunter did it better.

I saw this as a preview in NYC last evening.

I happen to like Christian Bale since his first major role (I think) in Empire of the Sun, the S Spielberg movie. Bale was a child then, and already an wonderfully expressive actor. I've seen him in many subsequent films, some brilliant, some less. He always gives so much to the character he plays.

In this film he's an optimist and a POW (unlike his Batman role where he's depressed but he can fly over rooftops.
There was a lot of fine acting going on, but the film was a little dull. You know he is going to escape his POW circumstance (because the film is based on his story), but the prisoner scenes are not as vivid as what we were fed years ago with The (great)Deer Hunter; nor as interesting as Midnight Express. Just a little flat, though there are some very good supporting actors.

Pros: The heroic story of POWs
Cons: Slow at times and performances lacked other Bale.

I would say that this is not a must see because sometimes it just didn't fit with my expectations. Although the seting was realistic and the actors looked the part as they were all starving prisoners. You could tell that they lost a very huge amount of weight for these roles.

I am a huge Christian Bale fan and I loved him in just about all his roles I have seen him play in. However, this was not a stand out performance, although in comparison to the others in the story I would put him at the top. He always tends to make me smile with his smile and this did just that. He tried to put some comedy in this non humorous story. POWs are nothing to make fun of or make lightly of. However, his settle smirks are much needed in a dark genre as this. Although it could have been a better told story I found the documentary that went a long with the DVD much better and loved seeing the real person and his story.

Pros: Steve Zahn and Christian Bale give solid performances.
Cons: Style betrays itself and ultimately drags

Pretty disappointing. I thought it could be so much better than it ended up being.
It tries for the documentary feel, which it holds more or less strong to for a while, only to abandon it completely favoring crane shots when we should be close on Bale.