Compelling movie, especially for those of us who didn't experience WW II ourselves.

Rating: Null/10 (12 June 2006)

At a bit over 2 hours, my only 'complaint' is that parts of it moved very slowly, which is actually nice if you want a leisurely afternoon watching everything unfold. The planning and back stories of all the characters took most of the first 90 minutes. But I found myself wishing for a bit crisper editing at times. Otherwise, it is a superb movie.
This is based on a real rescue in January 1945, at a Japanese prison camp in the Phillipines. These American prisoners had been all but forgotten, and many of them were resigned to dying there. But an elite corps of men planned and carried out a rescue at dusk of over 500 men, with very few friendly casualties. There is a 7-minute extra on the DVD where many of the survivors talk about their experiences, plus Captain prince who planned and led the rescue. So I suspect the movie presents a quite accurate picture of what really went on.
Benjamin Bratt is Lt. Colonel Mucci and the officer who planned the rescue was Captain Prince (James Franco), trained in R.O.T.C. There is a love interest, a nurse Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen), the wife of a deceased soldier, but she and one of the prisoners Major Gibson (Brit Joseph Fiennes, with a fine American accent) kept in contact via secret messages, and hoped to meet up after the war. She also smuggled medicine into the prison camp.
The Japanese army is depicted as very brutal, killing prisoners for any reason. It makes you wonder why they kept any of them alive at all. Based on first-hand accounts, it appears that this depiction is accurate.
I think we all need to see a movie like this now and again, just to remind us how evil war is.