Telling the audience they're watching heroes is a very different thing than stirring emotions and ratcheting up suspense.
The Great Raid (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:116
Fresh:41
Rotten:75
Average Rating:5.3/10
Consensus: Though the climax of the film -- the actual raid -- is exciting, the rest of it is bogged down in too many subplots and runs on for too long.
Runtime: 2 hrs 13 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: 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... 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. [More]
Starring: Benjamin Bratt, James Franco, Robert Mammone, Max Martini
Starring: Benjamin Bratt, James Franco, Robert Mammone, Max Martini, Joseph Fiennes, Marton Csokas, Natalie Mendoza, Dale Dye
Director: John Dahl
Director: John Dahl
Screenwriter: Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro
Producer: Harvey Weinstein, Bob Weinstein, Jonathan Gordon, Lawrence Bender, Marty Katz
Composer: Trevor Rabin
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for The Great Raid
The film is as black and white as any given State of the Union Address delivered by President George W. Bush.
Heartfelt, reverent, honorable, and, ultimately, more than a little dull.
When the rescue operation finally begins, this well-filmed movie comes alive.
Although the story of The Great Raid may have never been told on film, it's like every other POW movie, in this case made about 45 years too late.
You have to salute its devotion to heroism, but a gripping, involving movie would have been a greater tribute.
Feels strangely of a piece with the war films from the very period it chronicles... and will appeal to hardcore genre fans but not likely make a huge commercial impact.
Great Raid shines a light on an important, little-told tale of WWII combat, but the history deserves less drowsy reverence and more wartime enthusiasm.
Divided three ways among the rangers, the prisoners and the resistance fighters in Manila, the movie feels unfocused, schematic and overpopulated.
Centers on an undeniably brave and extraordinary World War II rescue, yet it fails to excite until its final scenes.
... a refreshingly old-fashioned World War II drama [that], much like its central characters ... gets down to business and stays with the task until the job is done.
The movie never quite lives up to the magnitude of the story it's trying to tell.
Sometimes you can have the best story a filmmaker could ask for, a giant pile of money and all the best intentions, only to end up with a sub-par piece of work.
Undeveloped secondary characters and awkward pacing thwarts the movie from achieving its '60s war film ethos similar to "The Great Escape."
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