The Great Raid

Reel Critic Grade: C+ Running Time: 132 minutes Rated: R

The Great Raid is based on true events surrounding the largest rescue in U.S. military history. It’s the kind of story that causes Hollywood film execs to wet themselves with excitement at the prospect of colossal box office receipts and Oscar buzz.

Who doesn’t love a well-told war movie, with larger-than-life heroes willing to lay it on the line for their country and comrades? It conjures up images of John Wayne and Lee Marvin sporting camo and leading citizen soldiers into impossible situations and coming out the other side, victorious. I was pumped, I was ready, I was ... let down.

It’s 1942 and the Japanese Army has successfully invaded the Philippines and taken prisoner tens-of-thousands of Filipino and U.S. soldiers. Those who survived the infamous Bataan Death March are placed in P.O.W. camps. One of these is camp Cabanatuan, with over 500 Americans. The conditions are brutal – disease, starvation, beatings, and execution for anyone who attempts to escape.

Three and a half years later, the American military has the Japanese on the run. Rather than allow prisoners to be liberated, the Japanese kill them when they sense their camps will be captured by U.S. forces. An example of this plays out early in the film, when 150 camp Palawan P.O.W’s are forced into air-raid shelters and burned alive.

Knowing these tactics are being used, U.S military commanders hatch a plan, a daring raid, to rescue the Cabanatuan prisoners before MacArthur’s forces reach the camp and trigger another slaughter. The Army’s 6th Ranger Battalion is selected for the mission. They are the “best trained, least tested” unit in the Army, according to Lieutenant Colonel Mucci (Benjamin Bratt) – he should know, they’re his men.

Mucci is a thinking-man’s warrior and not afraid to lead by example. His second in command is Captain Prince (James Franco), a young tactician who plans the raid and sees to its implementation. Together, they lead the 6th Rangers 30 miles behind enemy lines and into history.

The film weaves back and forth between three story threads: the progress of the Rangers, the daily trials of the Cabanatuan P.O.W’s - specifically the malaria-ridden Major Gibson (Joseph Fiennes), and the plight of a band of resistance fighters lead by the sultry Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen) whose love for Gibson keeps her motivated and in harms way.

These are compelling enough story lines, but the choice to frequently cut from one to the other derailed each story’s ability to sustain its tension and hold me on the edge of my seat. In fact, for a movie with built in conflict (a war), this film was eerily devoid of tension throughout. Obstacles were few and too easily overcome, differences of opinion were swept aside or compromise was made, and the characters (on both sides of the line) were so thinly drawn that, frankly, I didn’t care much if they lived or died.

Screenwriters Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro had living, breathing, historically documented humans to base their characters upon, but wound up writing dull, clichéd humanoids that walk, talk, and shoot. Story is always about character and not developing interesting, well-rounded characters that are changed by the events of the story is a novice mistake that should have been caught long before the first frame was filmed.

With that in mind, I’m giving the actors the benefit of the doubt. Bratt, Franco, Fiennes, Nielson, etc. were all hamstrung by the roles laid out for them in the script. Even the most gifted actors can’t entirely make up for the mistakes of the screenwriter. For what they had to work with, I think they did a decent job.

Director John Dahl has seen the backside of a camera a handful of times. His most notable works are Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, and Rounders. The Great Raid is certainly a departure from his previous twisting-turning plots, but he handles the new subject matter with ease. The film looks great with its sepia-tone, old-school feel and Dahl finds the right shots to tell the story.

His only misstep was not catching the humongous error in character growth. The Great Raid should have been an extraordinary film. It’s a shame such an amazing, true-life story wasn’t fully realized for the masses. You can still enjoy the history involved, but it’ll feel more like a documentary than narrative fiction. Like they say, the best laid military plans can go out the window when the first shot is fired – who knew that shot would be a frame of film. Ken Renner can be reached for comment at krenner@bendcable.com.

Ken Renner can be reached for comment at: krenner@bendcable.com