And here we have a conundrum.

This movie isn’t good. It’s preposterous, sloppy, obvious and often stunningly amatuerish in it’s execution… featuring possibly the least convincing CGI effects of any live-action film you’ll see onscreen for years. It’s riddled with plot holes, unexplainable developments and more action/scifi cliche’s than I could name. It’s a mess.

But I liked it. It hit a dozen or more of my more primal cinematic fetish buttons, it made me smile (in one way or another) for the entirety of it’s running time.

So hence my conundrum: My “feelings” are analagous to those produced by a good movie, yet I’m fully aware that this is NOT, in fact, a good movie. So, then, what’s to be the review? Can “not good, but I had fun anyway” pass as an informed critical opinion?

Well, it’s going to have to because that’s really all I’m able to muster.

Retelling the landmark story by genre legend Ray Bradbury, “A Sound of Thunder” is a pulp scifi yarn set in 2055, where time travel is possible and exploited by a businessman (Ben Kingsley) who charges obscene fees to send wealthy clients on dinosaur-hunting “safaris” to the Cretaceous. They’re only allowed to shoot ONE Allosaurus, whom history records is about to die anyway in a tar pit, and only with special ice-bullets so as not to disturb the past and thus alter the future. The slightest change, we’re told, could change history (and biology) in ways we can’t imagine.

Guess what happens. Go on, guess.

“Something” goes wrong on an otherwise routine time trip, and suddenly 2055 Earth is getting whacked daily by “time storms” that rewrite the rules of evolution with each passing wave. Before long, our heroes are trying to “set things right” while warding off the killer plants, giant bats, sea serpents and other obstacles created by their meddling. The “star” monsters could be plausibly reffered to as “Babboonasauruses,” and look like the offspring of the successful mating of King Kong and Godzilla. Actually, they more immediately remind me of Ymir, and if you know what Ymir is you may also be the sort of person who would actually enjoy this.

If nothing else, it’s worth noting that this is an honest-to-goodness B-movie, as opposed to the B-movies with A-budgets that typically dabble in this kind of material. The film looks, though often charmingly so… very cheap. Most of it’s “futuristic” exteriors are accomplished using painfully obvious rear-projection and blue screen techniques, the monsters are typically rendered in a CGI that wouldn’t pass muster in an XBox cutscene. It’s been awhile sense a theatrical release has been ambitious so visibly beyond it’s means.

So… it’s not good, but I liked it. I really want to be a little harder on it, but the truth is… it has half-dinosaur-half-monkey monsters, which from my perspective makes it at LEAST worth reccomending against similarly un-good films that do NOT have half-dinosaur-half-monkey monsters. If you want rationale, that’s the best I can really offer.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

Note: No matter how hard I try, some of this will be considered spoiler territory. Read at your own risk.

A few years back, Fernando Meirelles had the kind of big-time debut that every rising filmmaker dreams of with “City of God.” After knocking critics and audiences (myself included) on their asses with that Brazillian-set crime epic, he takes a different path here with a British-centric political thriller based on a novel by John L’Carre.

Well… not totally different. The story mostly unfolds in a series of ever-worsening Third World slums, terrain Meirlles certainly mastered the cinematic rendering of in “City.” And he’s still using that high-contrast film stock and stream-of-conciousness editing that fellow filmmaker Tony Scott has fallen so disasterously in love with.

The plot-proper must be related carefully in order to minimize spoilers: British High Council diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) learns that his globe-hopping activist wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) has been found murdered in Africa. More than a few details of the situation don’t add up to Justin’s meticulous sense of order (the title is literal, he gardens all the damn time) so he goes looking for answers. Instead, he finds a conspiracy involving the British government, “Big Pharma” (that’s “drug companies” to those of you not fluent in protest-ese,) African AIDS patients and assorted other interests too numerous to explain. Suffice it to say, the Big Bad Wolf of Western Capitalism is twirling it’s mustache in the direction of The Poor once again, and once again it’s up to guilt-ridden Western idealists to save the day (and cleanse their own consciences in the process, of course.)

Yes, here is another in the popular subgenre of political-intrigue stories which aim both to chide Western audiences for their “complacency” amid international tragedies while at the same time reassuring them that just a little pluck and determination on their part is all that will be needed to set things right again. It’s “arrogant” to imagine you’re the only people who can run the planet, but apparently not to imagine you’re the only people who can save it. This sort of fable was exaggerated to it’s most absurd point earlier this year in “The Interpreter,” which featured a heroine who fought passionately for “her homeland, Africa” who was played by… Nicole Kidman.

That, the “message” portion of the film, is the portion that is most problematic. The story is staged as the unraveling of a mystery, but the intended messages shove their way into view so early that too many of the still-to-come answers become too easy to guess. What’s going on, who’s behind it and even why are telegraphed much too early, and combined with the temporally-scattered editing style we’re often left too far ahead of Fiennes’ character who’s supposed to be our “leader” through the story.

To the good fortune of the movie and it’s audience, though, that problematic portion is largely a secondary concern of the overall work. Messages aside, the film is really about studying Fienne’s layered character transformation: His Justin Quayle had always loved Tessa but never fully “understood” her bleeding-heart passion for activism among the African poor, but in uncovering the conspiracy she’d been battling he comes to finally “get” her eccentricities in full and, yes, he finds himself more in love than ever. It’s an intriguing, if melodramatic, arc to follow; and Fiennes proves up to the challenge: Contented British stoicism hasn’t morphed into make-it-up-as-I-go heroic zeal this enjoyably since “Brazil’s” Sam Lowry.

Praise is also in order for Weisz, who has the tough job of inhabiting a character we “know” primarily through flashbacks and other characters’ memories. It goes without saying that the film is just a bit too in love with Tessa, affording her the eventual gloss of a martyred saint, (another activist character is actually crucified, just in case the point is lost on anyone,) credit goes to Weisz that we’re allowed to understand why her character was found to be so infuriating, puzzling and often downright obnoxious by a lot of the cast. We’re asked to admire Tessa’s zeal, but for the most part we’re not required to see her manner or methodology as entirely correct: When Justin is shown losing patience with her, the film never demands the audience “take a side.”

When the film’s character drama, with Quayle being led through the maze of intrigue by the “ghost” of Tessa’s memory, is allowed to control the direction the film flourishes. A pity, then, that it’s so often stopped or diverted by the bludgeoning hammer of it’s agenda…

…or by it’s director’s troubling tendency to show off his skills at innapropriate junctures, for that matter: The back-and-forth narrative proves that Meirelles knows his way around a fractured outline, for sure, but it also ends up tipping too many “secrets” of the story too early. And one scene, set in a hospital and involving an African baby, uses a series of cuts to play a pointless (and slightly cruel) “gotcha” on the audience. Still, there’s no denying that he’s a striking talent. The grim but beautiful tableaus of blighted landscapes and teeming slums, presented in deceptively-naturalistic hand-held cinematography pratically turn the continent of Africa into a supporting character in the film.

Overall, the persisent flaws of ham-fisted political moralism and overly-broad directorial scope start to crop up as the film builds to it’s conclusion, but overall the film remains a very well-made and thoroughly ambitious bit of intrigue. This is a good movie, problems and all, featuring some stellar acting and a cracking-good sense of visual asthetic. In a period that’s been particularly blooming with message-movie thrillers about the plight of Africa, “Gardener” rises not quite to the level of “Hotel Rwanda” but FAR above “The Interpreter.” Reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

First things first. Click the link below to donate to the relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina:
https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

Don’t worry, the blog WON’T be turning into wall-to-wall examples of this sort of thing, but I came upon this today and it fit too nicely with the previous post for me to ignore. (Tip of the hat to Andrew Sullivan, where I first found the link.)

I was wondering how long it would take for one of the Evangelical “Christian” groups that had made such sport in the past of attacking New Orleans for the “sinful” nature of the famous party destination to start declaring that the horrible devastation of Hurricane Katrina was a manifestation of God’s wrath. Today, I got my answer:

http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html

“Repent America” is a highly visible Evangelical Christian organization that primarily dedicates itself to filing legal actions designed to hurt civil rights for gays and abortion freedoms. The title of the above press release, issued 8/31/05, is: “Act of God Destroys New Orleans Days Before ‘Southern Decadence.'” (“Southern Decadence” being an annual gay-themed celebration in the city that had been scheduled for today.)

To put all my cards on the table as to exactly how much this infuriates me, let me state for the record that I have at least one family member among those who had to be evacuated from the New Orleans area, and multiple friends and aquaintances who live in the effected surrounding areas. They are all alive and safe, thankfully.

But many, many more are not safe. People have died, lives have been destroyed, an entire city and a good deal of it’s state have been all but wiped off the map. People have lost their homes, their businesses, their livelihoods, their mothers, their fathers, sons, daughters, friends, loved ones… GONE. This is senseless, horrible, unpreventable tragedy… the very kind of thing that humanity has cultivated it’s collection of religions and philosophies in order to psychologically and spiritually endure. But amid all the suffering, this “Christian” organization can only think to heap more suffering onto those who have lost:

“Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. “From ‘Girls Gone Wild’ to ‘Southern Decadence,’ New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge,”

Coincidentally, “Repent America” isn’t even Biblically correct in this outrage. Apparently, while I’m sure they can name the “anti-gay” passages of the Good Book in their sleep, they’ve apparently overlooked the coda to the tale of Noah and the Flood:

11 “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” — Genesis 9:11

At the conclusion of the Flood recounting, God’s pact with Noah and his descendants (i.e. us) includes a bold vow by the Big Man himself to never again rain such havoc on mankind. But hey, easy mistake to make, right? I mean, it’s unreasonable to ask that a religious organization be intimately familiar with The Bible, right?

Ahem.

But that’s just what I think. My gut tells me a lot of you are thinking some things about “Repent America” right now. Am I right? Well, how about you let them know:
http://www.repentamerica.com/contactus.html

And here’s the Red Cross link again:
https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

Lemme go out on a limb here…

I’m guessing that, among “us” (i.e. those of you reading this and myself writing it) there are probably several dozen opinions, agreements and disagreements about the myriad premises of the protests against the Iraq war.

I’ll further extrapolate that there are an equal number of divergent thoughts as to it even being “proper” to stage such protests from any premise while “the boots are still on the ground.”

But I’m willing to bet that, despite all those various clashing opinions, MOST of us… heck, most people period… would generally agree that staging such an event at the funeral for a soldier killed in the war is in the worst possible taste. Speaking for myself… screw “taste,” it’s flat out wrong. In fact, I can’t really imagine a MORE wrong thing you could do to someone’s family and loved ones whatever your feelings of the conflict in question…

…unless, that is, the stated theme of said protest is that the departed soldier(s) in question “deserved to die” as punishment for the ways of the country they fought for. And whether I can imagine something as wrong as that, that’s exactly what’s happened in Smyrna, Tennesse.

Who’s responsible for this outrage, then? Far-left antiwar peaceniks? MoveOn.org? Islamofacist appologists? Outright jihad supporters?

No.

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2005/08/28/ap/headlines/d8c8jgig0.txt

This was the work of an extremist Christian fundamentalist sect, the Kansas-based Westboro Bapist church. It’s leader is Reverend Fred Phelps, (known to Howard Stern listeners as patriarch of the “God Hates Fags Family”,) a genuine monster of the modern American political scene. He’s staging these protests as part of his standard theme: That American soldiers being killed in Iraq is actually God’s punishment of the United States for it’s growing gay rights movement.

His “church” is mostly made of his own children, grandchildren and their families, and is not (it’s important to understand this) affiliated with any official denomination. Even Rev. Jerry Falwell and “Family Research Council” boss Gary Bauer don’t want anything to do with him (Falwell called him “a first-class nut,” a welcome but somewhat puzzling statement from the man who once accused a Teletubbie of same-sex leanings.) And how’s this for contradictions: Phelps is a longtime registered Democrat (admit it, you’re surprised.)

Now, I may be wrong in believing that an overwhelming majority of good people (and even a fair share of the bad ones, I’d wager) can hear something like this and instantly agree that it’s just wrong. It shouldn’t matter if you’re pro-war, anti-war, liberal, constervative, democrat, republican, pro-gay, anti-gay, Christian, American, whatever you are… some things are just beyond the pale. Some things are evil no matter what side you fall on anything.

At least, I hope so.

On the surface, Terry Gilliam doesn’t appear too different from the majority of other “maverick” film directors: An offbeat auteur with a cult following, often appreciated more in Europe than stateside, in frequent conflict with studio bosses scheming to alter his vision to gain more mass-appeal… that basic description covers VAST swaths of what could once be legitimately referred to as the world of “independent” film.

But here is the difference: For most indie “auteurs” with a vision to safeguard, said vision tends to be of small, character driven pieces which can be reasonably produced independently or at a cost low enough to fly below the bean-counters’ radar. Not so for Gilliam, who’s particular visions tend more often than not to be of the size, scope and means that ONLY the dreaded studio system could ever have the infrastructure needed to realize them.

He’s the grand contradiction among all struggling film artists; the iconoclastic visionary who’s aiming to work in the key genre of the mainsteam Hollywood blockbuster (large-scale fantasy/sf/adventure stories)… providing he’s allowed to make them his way. And, because Gilliam’s “way” tends to mean outright absurdism, wild shifts in tone and pointed social commentary woven into the fabric of the narrative, his relationship with the studio system is one of the most contentious (and well-documented) of all modern filmmakers.

“The Brothers Grimm” marks Gilliam’s first completed film to reach theaters in several years, following the collapse of his disaster plagued “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.” The usual Terry Gilliam legends have come up around it (delays, budget cuts, studio interference) but with markedly less fervor than is typical. The message has been quite blunt: “This one” is here because Gilliam needed to make something and be paid for it for a change. The story has been, over and over, that he essentially worked as “director for hire” to film Ehren Krueger’s script and that his “personal” project, “Tideland,” will arrive later in the year.

Which is not to say that such talk is accurate, or that the resulting film is “bad.” But it must be said that, unfortunately, those expecting the equal of “Brazil” or even “Baron Munchausen” will be a touch dissapointed: What we have here is a largely standard “quirky” Hollywood action/adventure piece in the vein of “The Mummy,” garnished with Gilliam’s signature style and penchant for the absurd. The effect is a pleasingly inventive late-summer entry that’s never as good as it OUGHT to be but a lot better than it really NEEDS to be.

The story proper is a fictionalization of the early careers of the titular brothers, Willhelm (Matt Damon) and Jacob (Heath Ledger), here reimagined as con artists roaming French-occupied Germany in the age of Napolean. Jake is a self-taught expert in ancient folklore, Will is an able shyster, and they combine their talents in order to scam superstitious villagers by staging supernatural occurances and then exorcising them. When they’re found out and arrested by a French general (Gilliam regular Johnathan Pryce, essentially reprising his “Munchausen” role,) he offers them a way out: Travel to a troubled village and unmask another gang of con men who (the French are convinced) have whipped the locals into a frenzy.

Guess where this is headed…

Yes, no sooner have the Grimms (along with Peter Stormare as a scene-stealing Italian torturer working on behalf of the French) set up shop in the village does it become immediately clear that there’s real supernatural evil at work. Something powerful and ancient has been awakened in the forest, village children are being stolen, the trees have become untrustworthy and a Big Bad Wolf has been sighted. And what is going on in that crumbling old tower in the middle of the woods?

This all takes just a bit too long to set up, but once the base-plot has been established the story finds a good path to it’s true purpose: As the Grimms investigate the mystery, various characters and situations they encounter begin to seem awful familiar… theres a little girl in a red hood, a kissed frog, a woodsman, a tower, magic mirrors and even two lost kids seeking a gingerbread house. As hooks go, it’s a little thin but it works, and Gilliam milks the angle for everything it’s worth. There’s real cleverness on display in the way all the various tidbits and references fit together, even if some of it might seem more at home in a “Shrek” sequel.

Visually, the film has the same freewheeling pace and style that is expected of it’s director, but the overall look and feel (not to mention the story itself) end up owing a lot to “Sleepy Hollow” and “Brotherhood of The Wolf” (both of which were better films, overall.) Strangely, the PG-13 film ALSO borrows a fair share of darkness from those R-rated predecessors: Despite being seemingly written with a family audience at least partly in mind, Gilliam finds plenty of room to indulge his celebrated morbid side. Severed heads and stabbings get big setpiece scenes, a random kitten gets tossed into a torture-device’s whirring blades, extras are torn apart by angry living trees and there’s a genuinely unsettling moment involving a horse, spider-webbing and an unlucky child that will give your children nightmares.

The film is getting a critical drubbing, not entirely undeserved given the scattershot way in which much of it occurs. It’s a bit of a mess, yes, and it does carry the whiff of studio retooling at points. But it’s definately not among the year’s worst, and the parts that work really work. It’s trying very, very hard to be something as special as Gilliam’s prior genre efforts, and while it doesn’t really make it it certainly entertains during the attempt. Overall, reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

Well… I’d go see it, anyway 🙂

I can almost garauntee you that everybody who’s told you that “The 40 Year-Old Virgin” is “the funniest movie EVER!!!!” is exaggerating. I can also almost garauntee you that most of those who’ve told you this were previously sure that “The Wedding Crashers” was “the funniest movie EVER!!!!”

Yup, it’s this week’s positively-reviewed R-rated comedy, with all the attendant overhype that usually accompanies such. But don’t hold that against it, as it’s actually a pretty good entry. As with most such films, it’s primary function is as an advertisement for it’s own innevitable “UNRATED!!!!!” DVD release. Secondarily, it has the more admirable function of being the “arrival vehicle” of former Daily Show regular Steve Carell as a major comedy star. It’s amazing enough that Carell is already considered a bankable lead star based completely (or nearly so) on a scene-stealing turn in “Anchorman” and having provided the only genuine laughs in “Bruce Almighty;” but it’s more amazing that he’s up to the challenge.

The title is also the lead character and the bulk of the premise: Carell is Andy, an honest-to-goodness 40 year-old virgin. When the “secret” of said unplanned-celibacy is revealed to his co-workers, they make it a mission to get him laid. Of course, they don’t really “know” any more about women (or sex, really) than he does; so hilarity ensues. That’s it.

From this foundation, the film has simply to branch out and observe it’s characters in order to find the jokes. An early visual gag establishing Andy as a collector of comic books and action figures LOOKS like a cheap, annoying cliche; but there’s something slightly bigger at work. The film turns the collectibles into a kind of metaphor for Andy’s whole problem: The toys are all still packaged and sealed from the world, and so is he.

Fear of leaving (or recieving) an impression has caused his “situation,” and the “quest” is quickly less about sexual conquest than it is about the need for companionship overall: When Andy is invited to play poker with the guys from work (they needed a 5th) it’s the first actual sense either party gets of the other. Though it leads to confusion and mishaps, the adventure Andy embarks on with these new friends earns him new friends, he finds himself promoted from the stockroom to the sales floor at work (where he finds he excells) and the others find that they eventually benefit from Andy’s friendship as well.

A 2nd Act complication arrives in the form of Catherine Keener, playing an attractive single mother who’s genuine and immediate attraction to Andy (it’s one of the film’s smart points that Andy is actually a naturally nice and handsome guy who has simply gone unnoticed) provides a puzzle: Is Andy ready for a complicated, mature relationship when he has yet to even “master” a simple, immature one?

This being a sex comedy, in between all that insight and cleverness there’s also a succession of mostly workable grossout humor: Vomit, “morning-wood,” drunk driving, transvestites, masturbation (male and female) etc. all get their workout, and for the most part manage to be funny without overwhelming the film proper.

So yeah, indeed the funniest movie until the next funniest movie. Reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

You’ve already seen this movie a dozen times.

I’ve already seen this movie a few hundred times.

So here we go: An outsider enters into a small, insular culture. Said outsider is perplexed by local “oddness,” soon suspects dark secrets and eventually suspects supernatural evil as evidenced by bumps in the night and/or elaborate nightmare sequences. Said supernatural evil is explained by a sympathetic local, with emphasis on some obscure quirk of the occult plugged into this formula by a screenwriter shortly after they stumbled upon it. Said outsider does what they were told not to do, goes where they were told not to go, “the truth is revealed” and the shit hits the fan in the 3rd act. Everything wraps up with a “surprise” twist ending.

Familiar? Yeah, thought so. We’ve been through this many times, the only general variants to the formula being the cast, the setting and the specific “quirk of the occult” plugged into it. In this case, a dilapitated manor on the Louisiana Bayou is the “new” setting, Kate Hudson is the “new” outsider (a hospice nurse) and our fun new occult plaything is “Hoodoo” (the “practical magic” arm of Voodoo.) Hudson is supposed to care for an elderly invalid (John Hurt) who’s wife (Gena Rowlands) is acting suspicious and who’s house features a “secret” room full of Hoodoo paraphenalia and the requisite bloodied history. Dollars to donuts you’ll figure out who the bad guys are pretty soon, but might be semi-surprised by the full “whats really going on here” coda.

The film isn’t bad so much as it is staunchly formulaic and depressingly average: It holds so closely to the Old Dark House tropes that it’s almost never scary or even visually interesting, save for some nifty editing in a flashback scene and an appropriately jarring “the hell!?” image to cap a dream sequence. The cast and atmosphere, though, are working HARD to convince you otherwise, and eventually it manages to be creepy enough to keep you wary of dark halls and locked doors for a few hours after it ends.

Beyond that, it’s strictly forgettable fare: Just another quick visit by the studios to the PG-13 “horror” movie money tree. I’d say give it a pass.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

Somewhere in my hard drive, no doubt buried under a heap of half-downloaded pornography and half-completed screenplays, there’s a half-completed list of film-related items I’d like to call a moratorium on. I distinctly remember one entry, right near the top, being the pitching of films to the public as “It’s a western but set in ______.”

Which is not to say that I’ve got an issue with “modern westerns” or even films that claim to be such… it’s merely that the semantics of it bother me: “Western” isn’t technically a genre, it’s a setting. The majority of Westerns are action or drama films SET in the Old West, yes, but that doesn’t make every modern action or drama- even those involving vigilante justice -film a reimagined western in any reality other than that of marketing executives. And yet, each year it seems that every other gritty “guy movie” is aiming to pass itself off as “a modern western.” “Four Brothers” even goes the extra step of presenting itself as a loose remake of the John Wayne classic “The Sons of Katie Elder.”

Which isn’t to say it’s a bad film. In fact, it’s damn good.

The story you know from the trailers: Saintly Detroit foster-mother Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan) is senselessly murdered during a convenience store robbery. Her four self-adopted sons, the infamous “four boys so bad no one but her would take them,” arrive for the funeral: Angel (Tyrese Gibson) is a Marine, Jeremiah (Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 of “OutKast”) is a married businessman, Jack (Garret Hedlund) is a wannabe rocker and Bobby (Mark Wahlberg) is a hotheaded hood who suspects foul play and marshals his “brothers” to help seek revenge on Evelyn’s still-at-large killers. Few will be surprised to learn that the Mercer Bros. initially myopic quest for vengeance soon unveils a larger conspiracy, putting them up against local corruption and dangerous crimelords.

What we’ve got here is a fine, ruthlessly-efficient genre piece by John Singleton. The characters are well drawn, the mystery is appropriately twisty and the action wisely evolves as the film goes on: Realistic gunfights to start with, followed progressively by car chases and elaborate interogations building to a pull-out-the-stops 3rd act featuring vans full of armed goons, police phalanxes and a climax involving chainsaws, a frozen lake and mano-a-mano honorable-fisticuffs.

There’s no greater aim here than the core basics: A good story well told, punctuated where appropriate by comedy, action and drama. This is Grade-A street-tough action filmmaking, destined for a long future as an eventual basic cable mainstay. And it’s definately an improvement over Singleton’s last directorial effort, the disasterous “2 Fast 2 Furious.” Reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

Here’s a solid, competent WWII drama that was among the infamous films indefinately shelved by Miramax now slowly creeping out into the market following the onetime indie powerhouse turned Oscar-bait assembly line’s long-overdue dissolution. Directed by John Dahl, it details the rescue by a combined force of Army Rangers and Fillippino guerillas of American POWs (survivors of the famed “Bataan Death March”) from a Japanese prison camp at Cabanatuan. Military history records this as the most successful rescue operation in modern U.S. history.

The film is basic, uncomplicated and uncluttered: The situation is set up through narration and stock footage, the rescue strategy is planned, plotted and executed by a clever officer (Benjamin Bratt) and his men. Side-stories involving a Malaria-stricken POW (Ralph Feinnes,) his medicine-smuggling unrequited love-interest (Connie Nielsen,) and a merciless Japanese officer (Motoko Kobayashi) charged with liquidating the various prison camps provide the ticking clock.

Dahl presents the material matter-of-factly, which occasionally has the effect of turning the film into a kind of performed play-by-play of the actual events rather than a narrative; the film takes informing the audience of it’s history as a priority, and for the most part it works. The actors don’t try to dominate their individual roles, and no show-offy directorial flare or meditation-on-the-nature-of-war pretense crops up to get in the way. Speaking in the terms of war movie fans, it’s definately from the “Hamburger Hill” school as opposed to the “Apocalypse Now” school.

By now, you’ve heard that the film has had an abysmal opening weekend, debuting all the way down in the number 10 spot. The reason why, I’m afraid, is that all those things that make this a surefire safe bet for history buffs and WWII aficionados especially make it something of a tough nut to crack for audiences otherwise: There’s nary any tacked-on introspection or extraneous drama to be found, which means that those seeking a “war as a backdrop for blank” entry in the vein of “Pearl Harbor” will be sorely dissapointed. This is a movie about strategy and history, which just isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

But history fans, those seeking a solid war movie or the sadly dwindling numbers of WWII veterans (including my late grandfather, who fought in the Phillippines and whom I’m told was an active participant in one or more of the Bataan rescue operations,) this should be a welcome entry in the genre. It will find it’s audience on DVD, without question, but it’s really worth your time right now.

FINAL RATING: 8/10