Fairly inticate P.O.W. film which becomes a court room drama. Lacks dramatic intensity. 3 Flys Out Of Five

Rating: Null/10 (3 June 2002)

Bruce Willis is back at the cinema, or is he? In Hart's War he plays the American commander in a German concentration camp near the end of WW2, but Willis seems to be holding back, reserved, muted. He's not even the central character.
Compared to say The Great Escape which would have to be the benchmark in the movie realm, Hart's War lacks dramatic punch. But it has virtues. Hart is played by Dubliner Colin Farrell.
He's a soft soldier, doing his duty as an officer's offsider, driving big brass about protected by the influence of his well to do family. He gets captured, in a scene that is truly dramatic, interrogated and sent to Stalag VI in very wintry Belgium.
Willis's character Col. McNamara, a fourth generation soldier, is suspicious of Hart because Hart emerged from interrogation far too early. Hart might have spilt the beans and McNamara places Hart into an enlisted men's hut.
Hart is soon joined there by Scott (Terence Howard) and Archer (Vicellous Shannon), two black American pilots and here's where the major plot element develops because the white American troops led by Bedford (Cole Hauser) react viciously towards black men being put amongst them.
It's not long before a rather improbable court martial is on for us, with a black man being tried by a hanging judge (McNamara) for murder. The German commander (Marcel Iures) plays his stereotype well, as do the rest.
The racist element is handled forcefully along with a rather intricate plot. There's plenty to think about as various relationships are developed.
What Hart's War lacks is dramatic flourish. We're in a dangerous prison with the men but we don't feel threatened. If fact the prison with its theatre, piano, football, B.B.C radio and trombone looks more like a very chilly holiday camp. I wouldn't have been surprised if there was hot running water.
Colin Farrell's character Hart, the center of the film in spite of Willis's top billing, handles his material well but it seemed he should have been back in The States at his posh law school, of that he really had never left.
We get glimpses of Jewish detainees on death trains, but it doesn't quite register as awful. We've seen it all before and it doesn't stir the Hart. Hart's War fell into that dangerous hole called the court room drama but even the court seemed vacuous. Except for the racist element we'd seen it all before.
3 Flaccid Flys Out Of Five