Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a very early look at John (ROUNDERS, JOYRIDE) Dahl's THE GREAT RAID. I'm very, very happy to hear positive word on this flick even at this early, early stage because its two screenwriters Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro have rewritten the terrible, terrible Ehren Kruger-penned adaptation of King and Straub's THE TALISMAN. Looks like they were able to craft a big in scope adaptation with this flick, so fingers crossed for Jack and Wolf's journey through the Territories!!!
Hey Harry!
Just left a screening of a new WW2 flick here in the L.A. area. I had never been to a screening before and I was interested. This turned out to be a good choice.
The working title was "The great raid" based on the book "ghost soldiers". For those who are not aware, this is about a rescue of over 500 American POW's from a WW2 Japanese prisoner camp in the Philippines. All in all I gave the movie a "Very good" on the little pink report cards they asked us to fill out.
Here are some of the names of the actors in the movie. I will admit to not knowing any of these actors before this movie, except Joseph Fiennes of course.
Joseph Fiennes - Major Gibson
Benjamin Bratt - Colonial Mucci
James Franco - Captain Prince
Connie Nielsen - Margaret Jenson
Here is a quick recap.
The movie begins with "The movie was inspired by actual events" so not 100% doco, but they want people to know this isn't hollywood war junk. They start off with a series of newsreels and newsreel like footage showing the slice of time. It starts off at Pearl Harbor, and shows that FDR chose to focus on the European front, even though he promised to defend the Pacific as well. Next they review that McArthur was pushed back to Australia and the Philippines fell after months of fighting to the Japanese. The then show some gruesome footage of the camps, and the long march that the prisoners were forced to endure. Due to how the Japanese felt about surrender, they figured that the Americans were all cowards and deserved to die. They demonstrate this early on with the Antagonist forcing US POW's into a air-raid shelter and burning them alive.
Next enters our heros. A sharp hard nosed Colonial (Benjamin Bratt) and a young ROTC Captain (James Franco) who was noted to be a good tactician.
The Americans have claimed the first victories in the Philippines and are moving rapidly toward the prisoner camp. They have intelligence that leads them to believe that the Japanese will kill the POW's if they get too close, so the General decides to send in this team of Army Rangers to get them out.
During this time there are three main stories going on. 1) The planning of the raid and the army stuff 2) the survival of the POW's and the hope/desperation that they go through and 3) the rebel/underground in Manilla that is sending much needed drugs to the POW's. There is also a sub-plot of a romantic link between the Major (Joseph Fiennes) and an America nurse in Manilla.
After planning and traveling through the jungle, the troops make it to the camp and through a series of well planned diversions free the prisoners. The combat scenes were very well done, with some of the cleanest cinematography that I have seen in an "action" movie in some time. No jerky blurred stuff, just clean action and movement from the troops on both sides. Good representation of the relationship between the Philippine people and the Americans at the time. Also great work by Cesar Montano as the Philippine Captain who holds a key bridge and supplies key intelligence to the Rangers.
A couple of caveats: 1) the soundtrack was not the final one 2) some of the dialogue was hard to hear in places 3) not all of the effects were in, but what was in looked good. No need for many effects in this type of movie.
All in all if you are interested in a good War movie, and you like WW2 but are tired of always seeing the same theatre (Europe vs. the Pacific) this is a good movie to see. The movie seemed to share more with the "old style" war movies with less combat for thrill sake and more drama and suspense leading up to the finale.
The multiple plot lines need some massaging before it is ready for prime time, as the finale is 30 minutes or more before the actual end of the movie. Another thing, one of the main characters dies (in this cut at least) the Major (Joseph Finnes). It shows that the movie is truly not a "hollywood" style the good guys always win/live/get the girl.
If you use this, call me Lurking Wombat.
Cheers!
