Movie Review Rescue Dawn

Rescue Dawn (2007) 

Directed by Werner Herzog

Written by Werner Herzog 

Starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies 

Release Date July 4th, 2007

Published July 5th, 2007 

Werner Herzog is one of our filmmaking treasures. As both a director of fiction and a documentarian he has shined a human light through art that few directors can match. A close friend of Herzog was a man named Dieter Dengler. Herzog chronicled Dieter's extraordinary life in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. Now Herzog has fictionalized Dieter's story in the drama Rescue Dawn.

Going from the strict realist perspective of the documentary to the more free form of fiction; one would assume Herzog might take liberties with Dengler's story of his extraordinary escape from Vietcong sympathizers in Laos in 1966. Instead, Herzog is actually more strictly realistic in Rescue Dawn than he was in Little Dieter Needs To Fly and the result is a rather dry and distant recollection of events that should have a more cathartic and human focus.

Dieter Dengler never wanted to hurt anyone, he just wanted to fly. After seeing American pilots nearly kill him in his world war 2 era home in Germany, Dieter moved to America and pursued his dream to fly in the only place he knew he could get his wings, the Air Force. It was 1966, Vietnam was becoming a hot zone and pilots were in demand to straif the countryside and make way for ground forces bogged down by the unique and challenging jungle battlefield.

For his first mission Dieter was given top secret clearance for a dangerous and controversial mission. Hos squadron is authorized to fly over Laos and take out North Vietnamese supply lines coming from that country. Dengler is shot down and is soon captured by Vietnamese sympathizers. Taken to a POW camp, Dengler finds a hopeless group of fellow POW's whose emaciated bodies made for an atmosphere of desperation.

Dengler would have none of it and his attitude began a brave rebellion that would eventually save his life.

Based on the story told to writer-director Werner Herzog by his friend Dieter Dengler in the documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly, Rescue Dawn is no action movie take on Dengler's struggle to escape. Rather Rescue is a dry retelling of an extraordinary story. Herzog, maybe because he told this story before, doesn't seem to see much that amazes him about this story, he observes Dieter's actions with a detached, just facts approach.

I'm not saying the story needs embellishment or some invented action, just observing that Herzog's approach here is so irreverent that the real life danger Dieter Dengler faced is reduced to a detached recreation of Dengler's memory of the events.

Christian Bale does what he can to bring life to Herzog's sparse dialogue in Rescue Dawn. Bale infiuses Dieter Dengler with a playful arrogance and serious determination that he would have needed to survive this horrific situation. It is a very real performance by Bale, one of his most fascinating if not his most successful.

Rescue Dawn is simply too far away from this material for it to be really involving. Not until the end, after Dengler has made his escape, is the audience allowed a little catharsis but soon after the film is over, as if Herzog sensed the audience identifying with the material and sought to end that as soon as possible. This arms length approach defines Rescue Dawn and handicaps it.

Rescue Dawn is well made and professional but refuses to let audiences get involved in it. Like the just the facts approach of a classic documentarian, Werner Herzog strives for truth in Rescue Dawn at the expense of the kind of audience identification people expect in a movie. Oddly enough, as Roger Ebert observes in his Rescue Dawn review, Herzog approached his documentary version of this story with some magic realism that softened the story and made it more audience friendly.

Taking Rescue Dawn as it is I can recommend it for fans of Herzog and for you History channel lovers but for those looking for a classic war movie or action flick, Rescue Dawn is not the movie for you.