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| Hart's War |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 125 |
| Public Rating: 5.69 (26 votes) |
Director: Gregory Hoblit |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama/War |
Year: 2002 |
| Writer(s): John Katzenbach (novel), Billy Ray |
| Reviewed by: Arturo García Lasca |
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"Hart's War" wasn't very well received by the movie critics, and based on the little money it grossed at the box office, it seems nobody considers it a must-see. Well, I went to see it expecting it to be kinda bad, but I found myself watching a good War movie. Not special at all, not to be considered one of the great, classic war films, but still, a good one, if you ask me.
The film is set in the WW2, in a POW -Prisoners of War- camp controlled by the German, where Lt. Thomas Hart (Colin Farrell) arrives after being caught. Col. William McNamara (Bruce Willis) is the highest ranking officer in the camp, so he commands all the other POW's, but they're all under the power of SS Col. Werner Visser (Marcel Iures), a cold blooded murdered who wont hesitate to kill whoever breaks the rules.
Most of the problems begin when two black pilots from the US get to the camp and are not treated as they should because of their color. After a murder takes place, a trail is set to take place, in order to determine if the accused soldier is guilty or not. Lt. Hart, who is assgined to be the accused's lawyer in this trail, gets extra help from Col. Vesser, but the latter only does this for his own benefits, he too has his own plans, just like Col. McNamara.
The film has several different subjects not worth talking about here, but I can tell you it's enough to make a 125 minutes film entertaining. For those who will watch this film, don't expect something like last year's "Black Hawk Down", because this is nothing like it, it is not an action film.
The acting here was very nice, both the US soldiers and the nazis -at least Marcus Iures's character- were great, and I have no complaints about the camera work and direction either. Gregory Hoblit knows his stuff, I've liked some of his previous work, which includes 1998's "Fallen", Ed Norton's debut "Primal Fear" and others; this is probably his first war film, and in my eyes it's a success, as I said at the beggining of this review, the film is not a masterpiece, and it's certainly nowhere near being one, but I don't understand why it wasn't more acclaimed; it has, without a doubt, what it takes to make a film worth watching.
My only complaints is about the story itself. The film presents us with some tweaks and situations that would probably never happened in a real POW camp ran by nazis; I don't think they would have hesitated to kill whoever tried to argue with them, or insisted in having a trail if they already had a suspect, I think they would've shot him right away. And the heroic act by the end was a little both predictable and unrealistic, but oh well, it's fiction after all. I recommend you watch this film if you're looking for a 2 hours of thrilling events.
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