The not so Great Raid

Rating: 6/10 (3 December 2009)

The Great Raid is a very unfocused war film, hoping to cash in on the critical success of other war films like Saving Private Ryan and commercial success of Pearl Harbor. It is a war film that tries to have it's cake and eat it.
During the dying days of World War II the American is started to advance through the Philippines. The Japanese are having to retreat, they start to kill prisoners of war, instead of releasing them. A new American Battalion had been formed, the Sixth Rangers. There are meant to be elite infantry troops. They are led by Lt. Col. Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt) and a very capable young officer Capt. Robert Prince (James Franco). They are giving the mission to liberate American PoWs from Cabanatuan. It is an opportunity for the Rangers to prove themselves. At Cabanatuan the PoW are led by Major Gibson (Joseph Fiennes), a survive of the Japanese invasion and the Bataan Death March. His story shows how the Japanese were becoming more brutal to the PoWs. It become harder to bribe guards and smuggle in supplies. The Japanese bring in the Kempeitai (Military Police) to run the camp, with the aim to kill the troops. They use fear to ensure that the PoWs done try and escape. The third story is about Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen), an American Nurse who works in Malina. She works with the Filippo resistance, smuggling in medical supplies to American PoWs. The Japanese start to suspect she is working against them.
There are worst films then The Great Raid, but it does have a lot of problems. It basically is too ambitious for its own good and trying to tell too many story at once. It became too distracting and leaves the audience unsure and who there are meant to focus on. It's trying to tell a war story, a prisoner of war story and a resistance story. It bogs the film down, leaving it to be a little boring. A more sensible route would have been shown a film about the build up and training of the Rangers, whilst showing some scenes of the Prisoner of War camp and then show the troops fighting to get to the camp. The story of resistance could have been told in it's own film. It felt like the film was trying to be The Bridge Over the River Kwai, but obviously not as successful. The film should have been the raid. I also felt that the voice-over by James Franco distracting and gives the audience too much information. The beginning was too similar to the beginning of A Bridge too Far; text at the beginning would have been better.
There are some saving graces to the film. There are decent performances, Joseph Fiennes is normally good and put a lot of effort. James Franco was a okay, and so were many of the other performers. The action and war seems are also very good and the final third of the film is pretty exciting. There should have been more war scenes, considering it is a war film.
This film could have been so much more. I personally recommend The Bridge Over the River Kwai, or if you want a film about resistance watch Black Book or Lust, Caution.