Decent movie but loses reality at the end

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2003)

First, after reading what others have to say, I'm amazed at how little some of those people know about reality. I may have an advantage since I'm probably older that most of them, and also I'm retired USAF.

I never read the book, but I'm hoping it was better at conveying the concepts of duty, honor and courage (the themes supposedly espoused here) than the movie.
Lt Hart's emotions and the way he deals with the issues of race are straight out of the 1990's, not 1945. This is one place where the screenwriter/director failed.
As far as people's complaints about Willis getting top billing, that's normal, the bigger the name, the bigger the billing. Comments that the POWs had it too easy? Sleeping in a wooden hut with all your clothes on, including boots, in a German winter is easy? Some people have no concept of reality - this was a German POW camp, not Japanese. This was a fairly accurate portrait of that.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS!
As for the comments on why escape or why blow the ammo plant because the war was almost over, 2 things come to mind. First, they are POWs, they have no idea how much longer the war will last, and their DUTY as soldiers is to try to escape. Second, going back the the fact they are soldiers, blowing the ammo plant is part of what soldiers do, fighting the enemy (and also denying the enemy some ammo that would be shot at fellow Americans!). The point was made that the US Army thought it was a shoe factory and thus not worth bombing.
The issue of race is more understated than what probably would have happened. The movie angered me because of the perception that Lt Scott was being railroaded, while at the same time kept me interested because of the interaction between Lt Hart and the Colonel and the German Commandant, and especially the plot twists.
The final plot twist was what took this from being an interesting and engrossing film, to just a Hollywood gimmick, showing that the writer did not understand the American mindset of 1945.
Lt Hart endangered the lives of many men and a mission against the enemy, in order to be noble? As portrayed, Lt Scott and the Colonel had a far better understanding of the concepts of duty, loyalty, and country. Lt Hart's motivation was somewhat understandable, if he were a 1990's liberal instead of a soldier in the US Army in WWII.
That's where the movie lost me. An American Army officer would have done his duty and done as he was ordered, a concept Lt Scott understood, as he was prepared to die for the honor of protecting the 35 other men and the mission against the ammo plant. The only motivation we see in Lt Hart is his selfish desire to save Lt Scott's life and to atone for his own guilty conscience at breaking when he was interrogated.
What a waste of an ending. The movie had a good story, good plot twists, and a decent concept of the reality of a POW camp and the American and German military at the time. Then it was wasted with this pathetic ending. Honor, courage, duty, all concepts that most US military officers had, were foreign to the supposed hero of this film.