The Great Raid(2005)- User Reviews

It's always a tough job to make a film from a book because inevitably what has been left of the film in adaptation makes some who have read the book very very unhappy. Even iconic films like Gone With The Wind or The Wizard of Oz left out entire characters, subplots and crucial elements of the story. Even more difficult is when a director not only deals with actual history, but widely repoted history from the time. Ironically this incredible story has been as forgotten as the men who were left behind in the Phillipines, survivors of the horrific Bataan death march, and left to survive the most barbaric of conditions in a Japanese POW camp. I have read some reviews that suggest that the movie was sluggish, wordy, and even boring-except for the shoot-em-up at the end. I am at a complete loss to explain this reaction except to suggest that they must have been at the snack bar or perhaps they suffer from an advanced case of Attention Deficit Disorder. Every part of this story is fantastic to the point of miraculous. If this wasn't a true story anyone seeing this movie would dismiss it as being completely without credibility or hopelessly absurd propaganda. But it DID happen and to the director's credit his almost reverental treatment of the story echoes the feelings, publicly recorded , by the U.S Army Rangers towards the captives they rescued. If the woman who risked her life smuggling medicines into the POW camp and the love she felt for one of the prisoners is boring because of the lack of "action", then I guess the fact that she won the Presidential Medal of Freedom must be irrelevant. If the fact that these gallant soldiers somehow slipped past tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers for more than thirty miles, knowing that if they were seen just once there mission was over is sluggish- then I guess nothing short of a 30 second beer belch would be amazing to that sort of mentality. Finally, if the mortally ill POW officer, fighting for his life daily while inspiring his fellow prisoners is wordy, then I guess the reviewer that wrote that must have LOVED Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. I haven't even touched on some of the more emotionally charged events in the movie because I wouldn't want to spoil the impact they will have on anyone who is lucky enough to see this movie when it hits the theaters today. The most telling thing I can mention about the sneak preview I saw last week happened at the end of the film. During the credits the audience just sat there stunned. I wanted to applaud, but somehow it seemed trite. No, sitting in silent tribute while actual footage of the real prisoners was shown during the credits, seemed to be just the right thing to do, and the best way to humbly say a little prayer of gratitude...!