Stellar performances by Christian Bale and Steve Zahn make Rescue Dawn a quietly compelling film.
What that exposes, unfortunately, is the tendency to stereotype the guards as sadistic animals. They're given names by the prisoners that reflect their degree of cruelty--names like Little Hitler and Crazy Horse. Only a prisoner they call Jumbo, because he's half their size, is given any real positive human traits. That's the main weakness of Herzog's film. But again, Bale's and Zahn's performances are strong enough to make us overlook the film's deficiencies.
Video:
"Rescue Dawn" was transferred to a 50GB dual-layered disc using AVC codec at 34mbps. It's presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, which stretches to fill out an entire 16x9 television monitor. A number of sequences rely on soft-focus backgrounds, which, on HD, appear not just "Vasolined" but grainy. But bright-light wide shots and close-ups on the men and elements of the natural landscape show a good amount of detail, strong black levels, decent color saturation, and sharp edges. "Rescue Dawn" doesn't have that highly 3-D or plasticine look that some of the hyper-HD prints display, but given that it's a pre-Vietnam War era period film, that's just fine by me.
Audio:
Fox has been going with the English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio, and it's here again, delivering a very good uncompressed sound that captures a lot of detail in both the low and high ranges. Alternate soundtracks are in Spanish or French Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English (CC) and Spanish.
Extras:
I have to say, though, that the menu screen for this title makes for the most difficult navigating I've ever seen on ANY disc. It's as if the whole thing is in keeping with the frustrating escape-mode of the film: find your way to the *#!@#** bonus features! Well, I almost tired of playing the game and just reported to you that the menu made it too difficult for me, and I wasn't going to waste any more of my time. I couldn't tell what was highlighted, so that makes accessing anything a bit of a crapshoot. Then, it took me awhile to figure out that when I got a red indicator on, say, "commentary off" I had to click ENTER to shift the cursor to the left in order to make it ON, then press enter again.
Now, once I finally got into these things, the commentary track with director Herzog, who's interviewed by Normal Hill, is pretty decent. But I have to tell you that what I appreciated most was the pop-up trivia track, which gave a running account of what happened to Dengler in real life--like, for example, he was captured TWICE (which isn't shown in the movie) and escaped twice. It's a riveting track that actually adds considerable depth and some tension to the re-viewing experience.
There are seven deleted scenes with optional commentary by Herzog, who again is interviewed by Hill, along with an "Honoring the Brave" memorial and "Preparing for Survival" short feature that gives us real Vietnam War-era POWs who went through similar situations. A multi-part "making of" documentary shows behind-the-scenes footage and covers the usual bases, and it's informative enough. But as I said, that "Before the Dawn Mission Secrets" trivia track is the best.
Bottom Line:
At a time when filmmakers seem to be going for more bang to get the bucks, it's refreshing to see a war film that doesn't focus on combat and battle sequences, but instead gives us a character drama that speaks to the resourcefulness and resiliency of the human spirit. And stellar performances by Christian Bale and Steve Zahn make "Rescue Dawn" a quietly compelling film.
Video:
"Rescue Dawn" was transferred to a 50GB dual-layered disc using AVC codec at 34mbps. It's presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, which stretches to fill out an entire 16x9 television monitor. A number of sequences rely on soft-focus backgrounds, which, on HD, appear not just "Vasolined" but grainy. But bright-light wide shots and close-ups on the men and elements of the natural landscape show a good amount of detail, strong black levels, decent color saturation, and sharp edges. "Rescue Dawn" doesn't have that highly 3-D or plasticine look that some of the hyper-HD prints display, but given that it's a pre-Vietnam War era period film, that's just fine by me.
Audio:
Fox has been going with the English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio, and it's here again, delivering a very good uncompressed sound that captures a lot of detail in both the low and high ranges. Alternate soundtracks are in Spanish or French Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles in English (CC) and Spanish.
Extras:
I have to say, though, that the menu screen for this title makes for the most difficult navigating I've ever seen on ANY disc. It's as if the whole thing is in keeping with the frustrating escape-mode of the film: find your way to the *#!@#** bonus features! Well, I almost tired of playing the game and just reported to you that the menu made it too difficult for me, and I wasn't going to waste any more of my time. I couldn't tell what was highlighted, so that makes accessing anything a bit of a crapshoot. Then, it took me awhile to figure out that when I got a red indicator on, say, "commentary off" I had to click ENTER to shift the cursor to the left in order to make it ON, then press enter again.
Now, once I finally got into these things, the commentary track with director Herzog, who's interviewed by Normal Hill, is pretty decent. But I have to tell you that what I appreciated most was the pop-up trivia track, which gave a running account of what happened to Dengler in real life--like, for example, he was captured TWICE (which isn't shown in the movie) and escaped twice. It's a riveting track that actually adds considerable depth and some tension to the re-viewing experience.
There are seven deleted scenes with optional commentary by Herzog, who again is interviewed by Hill, along with an "Honoring the Brave" memorial and "Preparing for Survival" short feature that gives us real Vietnam War-era POWs who went through similar situations. A multi-part "making of" documentary shows behind-the-scenes footage and covers the usual bases, and it's informative enough. But as I said, that "Before the Dawn Mission Secrets" trivia track is the best.
Bottom Line:
At a time when filmmakers seem to be going for more bang to get the bucks, it's refreshing to see a war film that doesn't focus on combat and battle sequences, but instead gives us a character drama that speaks to the resourcefulness and resiliency of the human spirit. And stellar performances by Christian Bale and Steve Zahn make "Rescue Dawn" a quietly compelling film.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]22345[/release]