2006 Vietnam War prison camp escape movieRating: 11/20
Plot: One of the Batmen has his plane shot down over Vietnam while on a top secret bombing run. Despite his brilliance in hiding beneath giant leaves, he's captured and tortured and sent to a prison camp. With Charles Manson and a few other scrawny, shaggy prisoners, he plots his escape.
The best thing about this was the foliage. There are some beautiful soft greens and jagged greens in this, and Herzog once again shows off an ability to shoot landscape that it's easy to take for granted. Unfortunately, this bloated piece of Hollywood drivel is atypical of Herzog and really disappointing because of it. It's got the music, the big name, the action, the humor, the dialogue, and everything else you can expect from a larger budget American war picture. Christian Bale gives what is probably the worst performance I have seen this year. All things considered. He made the dog who played Underdog look pretty good anyway. His stumbling performance and the uncharacteristic stumbling direction made this one a real disappointment. Werner Herzog needs to stick to movies that end with animals. This one has an animal doing a trick (scene with a dog) but it's in the middle of the movie. Previously, he made a documentary called Little Dieter Needs to Fly, so apparently Herzog feels a connection to this true-ish story. Either that or there was the promise of a big paycheck. These war prison escape flicks have been done so much before with much better results.
Note: Werner Herzog has apparently found himself a new midget.
Here's a picture of me being disappointed in this film:
that's a shame. form every indication it looked like a hollywood nam prison escape movie but i thought that was just a ruse to get people to watch a herzog movie. i guess not.
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