PLOT: The film is based on actual events of World War II and concerns the daring raid on Cabanatuan that saw 500 'forgotten' U.S. soldiers in a Japanese POW camp freed by their countrymen.
Since any history lessons pertaining to World War II are currently being taught only by Hollywood, The Great Raid is automatically worthy of respect.
More or less.
The film is about the very small group of untested American Rangers, local guerrillas and Alamo scouts who rescued 500 American prisoners of war being held in a Japanese camp in the Philippines.
The Great Raid is an epic life-and-death story; that said, the movie is often hokey. From the acting and the lighting to the endlessly inscrutable Japanese officers, The Great Raid often looks like an imitation of the interchangeable '40s and '50s combat movies still running on late-night TV.
Never mind. And as for the victorious Americans eventually doing more damage of a cultural nature post-war in the Philippines -- never mind about that, either. The Great Raid begins with a quick summary that moves from Pearl Harbor to the Bataan Death March. Some 70,000 Allied and American soldiers surrendered to the Japanese in the Philippines. By 1945, when The Great Raid takes place, the 511 men being held at a camp in Cabanatuan are the only ones left. The Japanese have begun killing all prisoners of war.
The events in the film take place over five days. Here is Joseph Fiennes as Major Gibson, the officer at the death camp who strives to give his men hope. He, and many others, are sick with malaria.
Planning to rescue him and his men is Benjamin Bratt as Lieutenant Colonel Henry A. Mucci, a tough-talking leader who, you know -- talks tough, and James Franco as Captain Robert Prince, who will plan and lead the raid to free the men in Cabanatuan even though the whole thing is considered to be a suicide mission.
Also in the mix are Connie Nielsen as a resistance worker and Philippines' movie star Cesar Montano as a guerrilla fighter crucial to the success of the mission. (The subplot in which Nielsen and Joseph Fiennes are in love is fairly dopey, but fraught with danger and tension, so not a total waste.)
Complex plans, close calls, brave underground workers, unsung heroes, the dreadful deeds of the Japanese and so on and so forth. There is a heck of a lot going on in The Great Raid.
And some of what goes on doesn't make a lot of sense, and at times the action drags, but the details of the raid itself are riveting. The rescue scenes will leave you feeling as if you were in the midst of battle.
The very best part of The Great Raid is the ending, which features archival footage of the real people involved in the story. The Great Raid is based on the books The Great Raid On Cabanatuan: Rescuing The Doomed Ghosts Of Bataan And Corregidor by William Breuer, and on Hampton Sides' Ghost Soldiers.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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