THE GREAT RAID
***1/2 out of *****

Genres
Action
War

2005
Directed by
John Dahl
Written by
William B. Breuer, Hampton Sides (Book)
Carlo Bernand, Doug Miro (Screenplay)
Cast
Benjamin Bratt .... Lt. Colonel Mucci
James Franco .... Captain Prince
Robert Mammone .... Captain Fisher
Joseph Fiennes .... Major Gibson
Max Martini .... 1st Sgt. Sid "Top" Wojo
Connie Nielsen .... Margaret Utinsky
Natalie Jackson Mendoza .... Mina (as Natalie Mendoza)
Ken Kikkawa .... Commander Tanaka at Palawan POW Camp

I’m not sure if it is genetic or some sort of cultural conditioning, but I like watching war films. Sure Tora Tora Tora was bloody long, and A Bridge too Far a celebrity parade, but they are based on true events that need to be remembered, just in case anyone starts to forget that war is not glorious or fun. The Great Raid (Director’s Cut) works in this tradition, not only does it deal with a particularly brutal (and relatively unknown) period of World War Two, it also makes no attempts to tone any of this down. The film itself also has an interesting history, having been effectively sat on by the production company for several years.

I’m going to blame this on the Michael Bay Pearl Harbor Debacle. As American forces started to liberate the Philippines in 1944-5 reports came from the Filipino Resistance that the Japanese occupiers were beginning to kill American POWs. It was decided that where possible rescue parties would be formed to try and sneak behind Japanese lines to try and free POWs before they could be murdered. The events of The Great Raid deal with the successful rescue attempt on one of these camps by an infantry company. Surrounded by large numbers of Japanese forces they had to sneak in, then fight their way out against nearly overwhelming odds. Their success is one of the great stories of World War Two.

The cast were pretty competent, if not outstanding, with five main actors spread out amongst the POW contingent, the rescue squad and the Filipino resistance. Benjamin Blatt, Joseph Fiennes and Freaks and Geeks Alumni James Franco (nice to see him still working) were particularly believable. Believability is always an issue with recreating historical events; it is too easy to lose the mood of the time, the language, despite heroic costume design. However, I think this was achieved successfully here, although in the Director’s commentary it was noted that they had to work quite hard on getting the actors portraying the Prison Camp Guards to act believably brutal. Apparently the modern Japanese are a soft, friendly people, and I can’t say this saddens me.

My main issue with the film was that the film tried to do too much. An effort was made to give the audience a complete understanding of the context of the events. While multiple characters and even storylines work well in the written word it is often hard to translate this faithfully onto the screen without making this too complex. This contributes to people complaining that the film drags on too much before the actual rescue happens. I think this is a valid critique; perhaps the character development of the Resistance/love interest characters could have been reduced, or removed entirely. The producers responded to these critiques by inserting more action sequences into the originally planned release, however this version, the director’s cut had these additions removed. I for one am glad of this, for although the film does drag on, there is no point artificially spicing up the story, it just needed a little bit of judicial cutting. There should be no shame in shortening the length of a film if it helps make movie flow better. Less is more!

I would recommend The Great Raid to a wide audience for several reasons, it seems to be an accurate portrayal of real, historical events, the acting and plot are believable, and the DVD extras are truly comprehensive. I did not get a good chance to look at all the extras (i'll look at them when I get some time) before writing the review, but there is a lot of material there outside of the usual commentaries, including documentaries giving a factual grounding to the movie (not that it is really needed). I will not comment too much on the look of the film, as although I was impressed by the gritty realism of the shots I mistakenly watched the whole film on black and white so my credibility there is limited.

Rating ***1/2 out of *****

Main flaw: Movie attempts to do too much, some of the character development could have been easily removed to speed the story up without sacrificing too much.

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