The One That Got Away

Plot synopsis:
Luftwaffe fighter pilot Franz von Werra (Hardy Krüger) is shot down during the Battle of Britain and captured. He wagers with his RAF interrogator (Michael Goodliffe) at the POW reception centre, Air Defence Intelligence, located at Trent Park in Cockfosters, near Barnet in Hertfordshire, that he will escape within six months.
Initially, von Werra is sent to No 1 prisoner-of-war (POW) camp Grizedale Hall in the Furness area of Lancashire. His first escape attempt results in his recapture after an intense manhunt.
Subsequently, von Werra is sent to a more secure POW camp (based on the Hayes Conference Centre) near Swanwick, Derbyshire. He and four others escape through a tunnel. The others pair up, but von Werra continues alone. Reaching Codnor Park railway station, he impersonates a Dutch pilot and claims his Wellington bomber had crashed while on a secret mission. He telephones the nearest airfield, RAF Hucknall, and tricks the duty officer into sending a car. When his story starts to fray, von Werra creeps away and tries to steal an experimental Hawker Hurricane, only to be caught at the last moment.
Along with many other POWs, von Werra is sent by ship to Canada. On the train ride across the country, while the guards are distracted, he escapes near Smith's Falls, Ontario, by jumping from a window. Making his way south, von Werra crosses the nearly frozen St Lawrence River in a stolen rowboat and reaches Ogdensburg, New York, in the then still-neutral United States to claim asylum. The RAF interrogator receives a postcard from von Werra featuring a photograph of the Statue of Liberty, informing him that he has lost his bet.
The epilogue states:
Despite the efforts of the Canadian Government to obtain his return, and of the United States Authorities to hold him, von Werra crossed the border into Mexico. Travelling by way of Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and Spain, he reached Berlin on 18 April 1941.
On 25 October of the same year, while on patrol, his plane was seen to dive into the sea. No trace of von Werra was found.

Tags: anti war, violence, murder, flashback

Review:
Eerily detached and distanced from Chris Ryan's POV of an SAS operation that went horribly wrong. This is an extraordinary vision of war as an out-of-body experience, predating Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan by some years.Directed by Paul Greengrass, the film has an extraordinarily surreal feel, especially in the night scenes. The POV is Chris Ryan's, who is obviously an extreme outsider and a determined survivor.The cast is excellent, Paul McGann getting right under Ryan's skin.This film fits into the Lawrence of Arabia tradition being visually sumptuous, thematically expansive and musically (Barrington Pheloung) stirring.. Worth Watching.. I really liked this drama production (or TV movie, whatever).  This captured the feeling of the book while adding its own dramatic interpretations as to these events.  A lot of people have the preconception that the SAS or any other of the armed forces are always right, but this really opened my eyes as to how mistakes are made.In light of other remake of the Bravo Two Zero events, "Brave Two Zero" with Sean Bean, I believe this to be the better film.  The music is really great, and manages to keep our attention when nothing really interesting is happening.A good cast, watchable action sequences, and the always good Paul McGann earn this film a decent grade.. cameo. Cameo. Chris Ryan ( the actual SAS trooper the character in the film is based on) cameos as the soldier in the flight suit who takes the photo of bravo two zero in front of the helicopter.You can only see him for a few moments.Kneeling down and then standing up. The actual photo of Bravo Two Zero was taken on the tail gate of a Chinook helicopter, but perhaps the budget didn't stretch that far for this film.It's about 13 minutes into the film.Chris Ryan also cameos in ITVs Ultimate force series, also about the SAS.. An account of an SAS operation from Chris Ryan's point of view!. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY is the better movie of the story about the British SAS unit that gets discovered by the enemy in the 1991 Iraq war. Although BRAVO TWO ZERO is technically a better movie with regards to the build up to the operation, character development and the firefight on the ground after they had been compromised the story of Chris Ryan is more compelling.In BTZ there is a much heavier emphasis on Mcnab and his ordeal after he got captured which is where I lost interest and in all honesty found this part of the film tiresome. That's not to say that this part of Mcnabs ordeal was not harrowing and that his survival through this with his other members of his doomed unit was not a story that should be told, it's just that I'd prefer left to my imagination.The won that got away by contrast was not so heavy on the scenes of interrogation and torture but went back and forward from Ryan to Mcnab as the movie unfolded. In all reality Ryan's escape was remarkable and that is an area of the whole story that I found incredible. This film allows the viewer to see that taking the enemy by surprise and getting into a firefight with them can cause havoc behind enemy lines as well as leaving behind a huge body count.However on the flip side it shows that it serves of little military value to the overall war. SAS units are ideal for observation, sabotage and rescue provided they are extracted immediately. No matter how tough these guys are once hostile forces have fingered them, being outnumbered, lost, and exposed to the elements, unable to communicate makes them very vulnerable, but when the food runs out and you have no ammunition left they become completely useless. Eluding capture for so long under such conditions and eventually escaping into Syria was a miracle! Unlike Hollywood movies with Chuck Norris and Marshall Teague that shows small units on Navy seals wiping out 100's of the the enemy, kicking ass and fighting themselves out trouble of without so much as a scratch TWTGA paints a more realistic picture. Although to be fair Black hawk down provided a more realistic insight into the hazards of special forces operations, but even then it was a much larger operation with over 500 men with ground and air support.Note: NBC's TV series 'JAG' actually portrayed a similar fictional American operation where the one soldier that got away was actually court-Marshalled for desertion.)