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Who wouldn't love a prisoner of war who is just crazy enough to shout, "We're going to get even," while staring down the barrel of his captor's rifle? I left "Rescue Dawn" feeling absolutely smitten, with the character of Dieter, with Bale -- a fiercely dedicated actor who has often left me cold in the past -- and with director Werner Herzog, for giving new life to the old genre of the escape picture.
For fans of Herzog ("Grizzly Man," "Fitzcarraldo"), Dieter Dengler's name and situation will be familiar. Dengler, a German-born American pilot who was shot down while flying a secret bombing mission over Laos in 1965, was also the subject of Herzog's acclaimed 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly."
That he should return to the story in feature form is not surprising, given how captivating the material is. The buzz on "Rescue Dawn" is that Herzog has gone "Hollywood" because the movie has a conventional structure and an uplifting ending (and a budget that while modest, exceeds his usual shoestring and a prayer). But this is a strange criticism, as if to say Herzog should stick to storytelling where the
Moreover, "Rescue Dawn" feels very much like a Herzog movie, rife with jungle madness, oddball characters and great dark humor where you least expect it. The only thing Herzog depicts as more beautiful and frustrating than nature itself is human nature.
Dieter is captured within days of crashing his plane, then marched from village to village, usually led by a rope collar and leash. His captors stop and torture him whenever they're in the mood, but Herzog keeps the Sturm und Drang to a minimum; the torture is both matter of fact and weird (at one point, a small boy dangles a large beetle just above Dieter's face).
The Laotians behave as if they've captured a wandering polar bear, which they occasionally lose interest in and leave staked up. These never feel like scenes played to elicit our sympathy or build drama, they play as simple recountings of intense discomfort and strangeness between very different cultures. The movie isn't particularly political (although the CIA doesn't come off well), but it does make the point that Dieter might as well be a polar bear; he simply has no place here, and neither does the country that deployed him there -- the United States.
Dieter ends up in a prison camp deep in the jungle, shackled at night to a motley crew that includes a few Thai men and a pair of Air America workers. Duane (Steve Zahn) looks like Grizzly Adams but still has a few marbles left, while the rail thin Gene (Jeremy Davies) has lost whatever few he had to start out with. They've all essentially given up.
Not Dieter. Never Dieter. When his boyish grin fails him -- and you can tell by how long he persists in trying this technique that it has served him well in the past -- he turns to his native ingenuity. Having spent his childhood in wartime Germany, he knows a little about endurance and making do.
A single nail is enough to inspire his escape plan. It's also enough to bring some light back into Duane's eyes. This man rendered fragile by circumstance is a breakthrough part for Zahn, who has made a career of playing the mouthy, lovable sidekick. In a sense, Duane serves as Dieter's gauge. If Dieter stays put, chances are, he'll turn into Duane. Knowing that, he wants to rescue Duane as much as he wants to save himself. "I am your true friend," he says to Duane in a scene that is touching without even a hint of the maudlin.
Dieter is our anchor as well. We place our faith in him without having made up our minds whether he's brave or foolish (most likely, he's both, a helpful combination in these circumstances). He never lets us down. In one vital scene, one of their captors drops a gun, and the thing starts spinning in circles and firing wildly, everyone scatters. Dieter ends up with his face flat on their dining area.
While we're shaking our heads at the hopeless insanity of this place, Dieter is eye to eye with a few grains of leftover rice, devising a way to store food for their great escape. He stays thoughtful when to be thoughtful seems pointless, and in this, Herzog finds a story of true humanity and inspiration.
Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.
RESCUE DAWN
FOUR OUT OF FOUR STARS
Starring: Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies
Director: Werner Herzog
Rated: PG-13 for some sequences of intense war violence and torture
Opens today: Embarcadero, S.F.
Running time: 2 hours, 6 minutes
