A well-meaning but watered-down war epic

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2006)

The war film, like its cousin, the western, has been a staple of American cinema almost from its beginning. Both genres share common character underpinnings of determination, confidence, and, relatively anyway, moral certainty. Westerns, of course, are generally fictional, as the old west that's depicted in the movies never really existed. War films, on the other hand, while often fictionalized, are generally based on real events.
"The Great Raid" is one such film. Based on the details of an actual rescue, as presented in William Breuer's comprehensive book "The Great Raid on Cabanatuan", and Hampton Sides' "Ghost Soldiers", "The Great Raid" is director John Dahl's portrayal of those events, executed in very broad strokes. While the film was 'inspired' by the true story, as noted in the opening credits, some unnecessary creative license is taken in detailing an event, which on its own, is compelling, and needs no embellishment.
In January, 1945, a battalion of U.S. Army rangers plotted a raid on a POW camp at Cabanatuan in the Philippines. Most of the prisoners there were survivors--and just barely--of the Bataan Death March. The able-bodied had been sent to the work camps in Japan and only the sick and near-dead remained at Cabanatuan. Essentially useless liabilities to the Japanese, the POWs would likely have been killed as had others, so this mission was a desperate, last-ditch effort to save them. With little time and minimal intelligence information, the U.S. Army's 6th Ranger Battalion, led by Lt. Colonel Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt), planned one of the most audacious and dangerous missions of the war.
Occurring over five days, three intertwined stories tell of the plight of the POWs, the related efforts of the Philippine underground in Manila, and the strategy of the rescue mission. With a cast of mostly 'B' actors, the characterizations are marginally effective, but not particularly strong, with the exception of Connie Neilsen's performance as American nurse Margaret Utinsky. Utinsky, was a key member of the Philippine underground in Manila and was instrumental in the smuggling of medical supplies to the prisoners, which undoubtedly kept many of them alive long enough to be rescued. Unfortunately, the role included a tenuous love connection between POW Major Gibson (Joseph Fiennes), a composite, fictional character, and Utinsky, who was quite real. It's an unnecessary and gratuitous fabrication. Utinsky's efforts in the underground are notable, well-documented, and worthy of inclusion in their own right. The contrived relationship between them was more distracting than involving, as were a few other things.
After watching the film for about twenty minutes, I had the nagging feeling that something was missing. It was profanity. Hardly a single utterance can I recall. Anyone who's ever sat around a barracks knows how soldiers talk, and it isn't like these guys do. Even the most provincial person, while maybe not approving of such salty slang, knows that it exists, especially in a wartime context. Steven Spielberg, who's certainly not known for being offensive, recognized the need for such realistic, linguistic candor in "Saving Private Ryan." But, heck, there just wasn't any here. Paradoxically, Dahl has no problem showing the graphic brutality of the Japanese who, with frightening indifference, summarily executed prisoners and civilians alike, which undoubtedly accounts for the film's "R" rating.
Considering the flat romantic tie-in, the MPAA-friendly dialogue, and much of its visual style, this film has the look of a production that could have originally been intended for television, but was instead hung on the coattails of current events and put into widespread theatrical distribution, perhaps intended to rally support for a war that the nation seems to be tiring of. But although it lacks a certain verbal grittiness at times, and is often rife with platitudes, "The Great Raid" is a film whose heart, if not its mouth, is in the right place.
Â© 2005