Rescue Dawn (2006)
Rescue Dawn is a true story about US fighter pilot, Dieter Dengler. During the Vietnam war his plane was shot down. He was captured and spent some time in a POW until he was rescued.
In 1997, Herzog made a documentary film about Dengler called Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) which will be on my list of films to watch.
It would be easy dismiss Rescue Dawn as ‘another Viet Nam movie’ but in the hands of Herzog it is a solid film. It is beautifully filmed—saturated colours and lots of film grain and incredible landscape shots. I hate to sound like a broken record but the sound mix is spot on. In many scenes, you feel like you’re in the jungle with Dengler.
As Jeremy Davies said in his Q&A, Christian Bale, the star of the film, is one of the most underrated actors working today. His performance in Rescue Dawn is intense and very convincing. It was also nice to see funny man, Steve Zahn in a serious role, as a POW.
Films are rated from 1 to 4 stars.
Posted in 2006 TIFF and Movie Reviews at 3:27 PM
