Good story done poorly

Rating: 5/10 (15 August 2005)

Director John Dahl missed an opportunity to make a compelling story into a great move. Not only did he miss the boat, he never made it to the dock. The best part of the movie is the post-credits actual footage of the aftermath of the rescue.
After such great recent WWII dramas as "Saving Private Ryan" and "When Trumpets Fade", Dahl chose to follow the model of a sub-par war flick like John Woo's "Windtalker", where he tried to force a romantic interest into a situation where it was totally out of place.
Hampton Sides provided plenty of plot and action in his book "Ghost Soldiers" that a good screenplay could have drawn from, unfortunately it did not occur.
I will say, the actual rescue scenes are energized and exciting but it is too little too late in the movie to prop up this cinematic failure.
Costume design!!! What did they do, go pick up some fresh uniforms off the rack for the POWs. These guys had been held in captivity for 3 1/2 years with the same clothes that they had survived months on Batan wearing. In reality their uniforms were mere rags, which should have been an easy detail to get right. Malnutrition - the prisoners looked better fed than I am. Really poor attention to detail.
James Franco's roll as Capt. Prince, one of the raid leaders, could have been played by a mannequin. He was awful, no wonder I'd never heard of him.
Read the books, skip the movie until you can get it on video.