Rescue Dawn and its critics
I saw Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn last night -- based on Dieter Dengler's (played by Christian Bale) escape from a Laotian prison camp -- and thought it was a pretty good war prison break film. Jeremy Davies plays Eugene DeBruin, a Charlie Manson-like co-POW who threatens to interfere with the plan. While reading about the movie online afterward, I learned that his character was based on a real person who stayed behind to help a sick fellow prisoner, and was never heard from again. His brother runs Rescue Dawn: The Truth, a website that criticizes DeBruin's portrayal. It made me feel a little guilty about enjoying the film.
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i hadn't heard that. davies almost steals the show.
i saw this recently, as well, and was turned off by the beginning and end bits. i have never seen other herzog films, so forgive me if i sound foolish, but it seemed like he was trying to prove that those types of scenes are easy to do, and yet they failed me.
The last scene was indeed terrible. This was Herzog's first American studio film, so I wonder if that had to do with it.
This is an interesting article about the making of the film, and Herzog's frustrations with working with an American crew:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/04/24/060424fa_fact_zalewski
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