Not what I expected

Rating: 5/10 (18 February 2002)

I'll admit right here and now that I was not expecting this to be another JAG drama: I was picturing it more like a dramatic Hogan's Heroes, where the prisoners create havoc for the Germans. Instead, it felt a great deal like Stalag 17, except that the outsider/loner was an African-American soldier. Other than that, the two are very similar, except that I think Stalag 17 is much better done, deeper, more interesting than Hart's War.
Honestly, this story just worked too hard to get from A to B, because B was in no way the logical conclusion of A, no matter what turns were inserted into the script. So much evidence was glossed over: if there were mud beneath the floor board (enough to make the victim so dirty) why wasn't there a spot on the pilot, a fact ceded by the prosecution? (Hart had argued along similar lines just 5 minutes earlier, but now forgets it? I think not. Or that the criminal (when it was finally revealed) did not have any of that tell-tale sign left on him 3 minutes after the crime? I can see him scrubbing away frantically for all of 2 seconds? "Out darned spot...?oh wait, I'm clean. Ok."
My greatest problem with the movie is the message: that in order to be a hero you must die for your fellow man. While that can be a heroic act, I keep remembering a quotation by Gen. George Patton that "No poor, dumb soldier [editing for profanity] ever won a war by dying for his country. You win wars by making the other poor, dumb soldier die for his country." It just seemed to me that there were numerous ways to solve their problem without sacrificing anybody, if they had thought about it first but they instead all jumped up "I'll die for you." "No, I'll die for you" ?They never considered that there was only one person who had to die. Also, Hart's heroic act was actually among the most foolish things he could possibly do, speeding up what he should have wanted to slow down.
About the race issue here, some of the things that the pilots (both African-Americans) said were very interesting and worth listening too, but it really seemed like they were an otherwise superfluous wrinkle in the puzzle, as though a studio exec watched Stalag 17 and said, "You know what ?I don't want to redo this movie, but I bet if we made the pilots black instead of white we could call this original." To me that cheapens the film, if the crux of your film is "heroism in light of a trial fraught with racism" then racism should be an integral part of the film, instead if you took it out and changed a few words here and there it would be the exact same movie ?which disappoints me even futher.
I like war movies, and though I gave this a 6 I cannot say that it is a bad war movie I've seen. I do feel comfortable saying that it is a frustrating movie, that gets worse with time (the more you think about it, the more flaws you find in the story and your impression of it goes down). It has good moments and it is interesting at times, but if you want to see a WWII film about prison camps and conflict among soldiers see Stalag 17. If you want to see a Bruce Willis movie about heroes see Armageddon. This film just isn't original, interesting, or exciting enough to merit viewing it before those two films.