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HART'S WAR Send This Review to a Friend
World War II continues to yield stories of hardship and heroism, and "Hart's War," based on John Katzenbach's novel, plunges into the prison escape genre. Bruce Willis stars as a hard-boiled colonel bent on protecting his men, imprisoned by the Germans, with the ultimate intention of breaking free. But the situation is a tough one with a nasty adversary, a German colonel (Marcel Iures) who can be ruthless and execute prisoners with chilling casualness. But the American officer has something special up his sleeve.
Director Gregory Hoblit creates a somber atmosphere and Willis has the kind of a role in which he excels. The trouble is that not much in the screenplay by Billy Ray and Terry George is believable when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of the main plot ploy, which involves an American-run court martial of an accused American soldier allowed by the German colonel. The lieutenant on trial (Terrence Howard), an African-American, has been accused of murdering a racist fellow soldier. Another lieutenant (Colin Farrell) has been given the impossible task of defending him.
It becomes difficult to discuss "Hart's War" further without giving the key maneuver away. But suffice it to say that this is a film in which a black serviceman, subjected to the racial discrimination prevalent at the time, has a rah-rah speech stating his readiness to sacrifice himself for the common good and the white prisoners as a point of military honor even though he knows he's getting used and screwed. I'm waiting for the black comics to get hold of that one.
Apart from that, even though the film is done well physically, the likelihood of all the manipulations and face-off confrontations between the Americans and the Germans ending in anything other than mass slaughter would be slim. But this is the sort of action film in which nobody seems to worry very much about what's credible and what's not. An MGM release.
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