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Movie Review — Hart’s War
By Jim Sabatini
Some moviegoers may be tricked by the ads for Hart's War, thinking that it is an action-oriented World War II Hollywood film. But, starring Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell, recently of American Outlaws, this Gregory Hoblit (Frequency) picture is a progressively absorbing film that starts out with a blast.
In some ways, this microcosm of war shot mainly in Prague, Czechoslovakia works well in a defined, intimate setting that is enhanced by a character-driven drama. Hart's War illuminates the toughness and harsh elements of POW camps as reflected in the undetailed designs from Lilly Kilvert. What dutiful cineastes will recognize here is a little of Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men confined to Stalag 17. Willis, as an incarcerated military man, seizes an opportunity that fuels a viable relationship with the title character, played by Farrell. Hart's War has little in common with the relentlessly riveting and brutal Black Hawk Down, and doesn't try to pack a wallop to audiences visually.
Willis' steely Col. William McNamara is the highest ranking officer in the Stalag VI compound, and the fourth-generation uniformed man really runs things. McNamara meets the captured, heavily badgered Lt. Tommy Hart after an exciting, intense scene depicting the transfer to the prison camp by train. The scheming, stern colonel sees Hart to be feeble after the Nazis have pushed him around, and the sympathetic young man is remanded with enlisted captives.
Reiner's sharply confrontational picture is recalled when the compound is shaken up after two Tuskegee airmen are shot down. A manipulative racist in Staff Sgt. Bedford (Cole Hauser) is found with a broken neck and there is evidence against one Lt. Scott, played incisively by Terrence Howard (HBO's Boycott). Hart is a Yale legal pupil invoked by McNamara to represent the suspected killer.
What feeds seamlessly into the plans of McNamara's marshalling of a criminal investigation is a diversion that Hart gradually realizes is unrelated to an impending court martial. It's about relaxing the vigilance of the imposing Nazi commander Col. Werner Visser (Marcel Iures) and his guards so that an escape may be orchestrated, the purpose of which is to eradicate a nearby munitions facility.
Hoblit creates much tension with a decline of action, utilizing the novel from John Katzenbach, who based it on the experiences of his father, John, "an accessory to the truth." The director of Primal Fear knows courtroom drama from his work on L.A. Law, and if the script falls into preachiness, the adept ensemble knows how to draw men of honor and sacrifice into harsh circumstances.
With Rachel Portman's softly affecting score and some starkly illuminating photography, Hart's War maneuvers subtly into a stirring combat tale. As Hart, Farrell exudes growing confidence as a pressed Allied officer who is pitted well against the authoritative, shadowy presence of Willis. And as this dense but smooth drama reaches new discoveries, it does justice to a formidable actor like the Romanian Iures, who has what it takes to stay out of the cold stereotypes which seem to infiltrate most Hollywood POW camps.
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