Rated R - Running Time: 2:05 - Released 2/15/02
HART'S WAR
Rated R - Running Time: 2:05 - Released 2/15/02
What would you get if you made Hogan's Heroes into a dramatic
feature film? You might get something like Hart's War,
a thoughtful study into the goings on in an American POW camp
during World War II. However, while Gregory Hoblit's film doesn't
paint the U.S. military prisoner's experience as quite the yuk-fest
it was in the TV show, it does sanitize the violence considerably
and portray the German captors as being quite sympathetic, even
friendly, toward their American detainees. This is because the
film's story, penned by Billy Ray and Terry George, based on the
novel by John Katzenbach, is concerned more with the issue of
racism among the U.S. prisoners than the treatment they endured
from their captors. While the subject of cruelty or torture in
Nazi prison camps may be a side issue to this film's main plot,
there may be some former POWs out there who will take exception
to its sympathetic portrayal of the "enemy."
That said, the story is suitably gritty and intense, with director
Hoblit (Frequency) achieving
at least the authenticity, if not the integrity, of a Schindler's
List with his Czech-produced film. It also allows Bruce Willis
another chance to play a tough-as-nails antihero, something he
does with identical effectiveness, not to mention identical characterization,
in each such role he is given (Die Hard, Armageddon,
The Siege, etc.). These are the
roles he plays in between the more interesting ones (12 Monkeys,
The Sixth Sense, Bandits).
Meanwhile, Colin Farrell does admirably the job of playing the
title role when the title role is not the star of the picture.
He's there mainly to act as a foil to Willis's overblown heroics.
The story begins with Lieutenant Thomas W. Hart (Farrell),
a senator's son with a cushy assignment far from the fighting
at V Corps H.Q. in Belgium. When Hart is sent to drive another
officer through hostile territory, their jeep is attacked and
the other man killed. Next thing he knows, he's being transported
to a POW camp in Augsburg, Germany, where he meets hardened veteran
Col. William A. McNamara (Willis) and his men. Just as Hart is
beginning to cozy up to his newfound roomies, some new prisoners
arrive, among them two Negro officers from the all-black Tuskeegee
flying brigade, Lt. Lamar Archer (Vicellous Reon Shannon) and
Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Dashon Howard).
Though the African Americans outrank most of the other men,
they are treated with disrespect by everyone except Hart. Soon
Lt. Archer is set up by particularly nasty racist Staff Sgt. Vic
Bedford (Cole Hauser, Farrell's partner in crime [and I mean that]
from American Outlaws).
Hiding a weapon beneath Archer's bunk, Bedford frames him for
an offense which results in his execution. Lt. Scott vows revenge,
and the next thing you know, Bedford is dead, with Scott cast
as the prime suspect—even though he says he didn't do it.
Now Hart, who has only had 2 years of Yale law school, is assigned
by Col. McNamara to defend Scott in a military court-martial,
held right there in the prison with the German guards and commandant
(Marcel Iures) attending. Though McNamara is presiding over the
trial, he seems blatantly biased against the black lieutenant,
but we soon learn that the whole trial is not as is appears.
Willis, Farrell, and Howard are all perfectly fine in this movie, but it is Iures's performance as Col. Werner Visser, this prison's Klink, that intrigues me the most. At once charming, educated, and aware of the obvious discrepancies of the situation, Iures seems to be more good guy than the good guys. Is this intentional on director Hoblit's part? Ich weiß das nicht. ****