Rescue Dawn
Just when you think the well’s dry, another great director comes out with another great Vietnam movie. It’s amazing how different this one is from what’s come before. There are elements here and there of The Deer Hunter; of The Thin Red Line (not Vietnam, I know, but close enough – Klaus Bedelt’s wonderful score very like Hans Zimmer’s there, too); but this thing’s far more raw and animal, even beastly. Just when I began to think, “oh, that’s it? I kinda expected him to go through worse,” ... boy, did it give me worse.
Christian Bale’s performance is perfect – it begins so innocently that you almost start to wonder what everyone’s been getting so excited about, but boy does it build and by the end you truly feel he’s gone through it all. Steve Zahn, too, who I was looking forward to seeing almost more than I was to seeing Bale, starts out much as he has been in other movies, but it becomes something much more. The ending’s uber-corny, it can’t be overstated, but apart from that, it’s definitely well worth the watch.