Movie Reviews

Hart's War is a fairly interesting -- if perhaps a little disjointed -- Second World War picture. It takes place entirly within a German P.O.W. camp where Colonel McNamara (Bruce Willis) is the highest ranking American officer, and Lieutenant Hart (Collin Farrell) is the newest prisoner. The first half of the movie seems to be about general life within the prison camp, and it's interesting to note how the American army's command structure remains completely intact inside the camp (for example, as the ranking officer in the camp, everyone treats the Colonel exactly the same way as if he was their commander in some kind of military operation).

I mentioned that the movie seems a little disjointed because, about halfway through the film, things change quite dramatically. Two new prisoners arrive, who happen to be the only black people in the entire camp. When one of them is suspected of murdering a fellow prisoner, the Americans set up a makeshift criminal trial, with the permission of the German guards, and with Lt. Hart acting as the defense attorney for the black prisoner. I'm not sure why, exactly, but it seemed a little goofy to me that the film so suddenly turned from a P.O.W. story into a court-room drama. I'll admit that the film gets more interesting as the trial goes on, but it seemed like most of the prisoners simply wanted the trial as a way to occupy themselves (which I suppose might've actually been the whole point).

One of the more intriguing aspects of Hart's War is the portrayal of the Germans. For the most part, they're shown as pretty reasonable and accomodating towards their prisoners. As the German guards were also permitted to sit in on the trail, it was obvious that they were getting a kick out of the whole thing too (maybe they found it as goofy as I did, at first).

Anyway, this was a decent film, with more positives than negatives (especially Bruce Willis, who continues to show that he really is a good actor in non-action movies).