A different and unique slant on the POW film

Rating: 6/10 (30 October 2011)

This is a film in desperate search of a genre. It starts off as a classic WW2 thriller, with German ambushes in a snowy landscape and plenty of twists and turns within a short time. It moves into POW camp territory, with varying factions vying for power in a prison territory. Not content to stay there, HART'S WAR then turns into a murder mystery (with added racial commentary) before finally setting on its path as a courtroom drama for the rest of the running time.
The veering from genre to genre gives the film a bit of a disjointed feel, but for the most part I could forgive that because I found this to be an entertaining movie. Colin Farrell, back when he was making an effort to break into stardom and teamed up with bigger actors (Bruce Willis in this, Tom Cruise in MINORITY REPORT), doesn't put a foot wrong and Willis has the liberty to steal all of his scenes as the gruff, grizzled colonel. I've always liked Terrence Howard, too, and he bags a meaty role here.
The film isn't always engaging. Some of it, those cross-over bits inbetween the various genre bits, are rather dull, and there are a few too many CGI warplanes for my liking. But come the end, I was caught up in the story and the characters were the thing that kept me watching, especially as the latter moral dilemma plays out. Okay, so the excruciatingly sentimental ending (yes, it's as bad as the end of LORD OF THE RINGS: RETURN OF THE KING) is way over the top, but until then HART'S WAR does its job and makes a refreshing change of pace from the usual wartime heroics.