Some time ago Bruce Willis said he wanted to give up doing superhero action roles, but he never said anything about giving up heroic roles. In the 2002 film "Hart's War" he plays a man of strong convictions, strong instincts, and strong loyalties. Neither the film nor its characters break any new ground, but for most of its running time it is an intelligent and compelling prisoner-of-war story that resorts to very little on-screen violence. Few war movies can boast such credentials.
The setting is Belgium, December 16, 1944. Young Lt. Thomas Hart (Colin Farrell) is sent to drive another officer to the front. On the way they're attacked, and Hart is captured and sent to a German POW camp. This opening scene is one of the most brutally vivid and exciting I've seen in some time. It lasts only a few minutes, but it sets the tone for the rest of the movie--not for its action, necessarily, because there is very little further overt violence after this scene in the movie, but for its gritty realism. From the point Hart enters the prisoner-of-war compound, the movie becomes an uncompromising test of wills among three men: Lt. Hart; Col. William A. McNamara (Willis), the ranking American officer in the camp; and Col. Werner Visser (Marcel Iures), the German commandant.
At first blush, the film and its situations may seem mere copies of "Stalag 17" and "The Great Escape," but with the introduction of two additional prisoners, both of them African-American flying officers, the film takes on the ambitions of a film like "Men of Honor." The armed services were not well integrated in WWII, and the black officers immediately come into conflict with the racism and bigotry of the Germans soldiers as well as many of the white prisoners. This condition precipitates the film's major conflict, the killing of one of the black men, then the killing of one of the white prisoners, and, finally, a climactic courtroom scene.
Col. McNamara persuades Col. Visser to allow a trial as a kind of amusement for the men, German and American. The man on trial is Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), one of the two black officers and a fellow clearly innocent of the murder he's accused of. Young Mr. Hart is assigned by McNamara to defend Scott, ostensibly because Hart has had a year of law school before the War.
It's a tough-minded tale, and at its center McNamara and Hart are tough-minded men. McNamara is an old-line West Point man; what's more, his father and his father's father were West Point men. The army is in his blood, and he resents no longer being able to participate in the war. The trial appears to be his way of fighting back, of being in the war. Hart, on the other hand, is the son of a congressman. He's lived a more pampered life, and he's never seen real action until now. Yet his convictions are as strong as McNamara's when it comes to justice and integrity, which is what any case eventually comes down to. The film is not titled "Hart's War" for nothing.
The movie is unhesitating and decidedly unglamorous in its examination of human emotions. As it proceeds, we begin to doubt McNamara's motives for the trial. Is he really trying to serve his men and his country, or is he only out for himself? Does he have some secret reason for wanting this trial to come off, and why is he so insistent it be carried out according to strictest military regulations? Here the film becomes momentarily murky until its conclusion. Be patient.
The story line attempts to address some serious issues concerning war and courage, racism and hatred, sacrifice and honor, heroism and villainy. But there may be more issues here than the movie can adequately expound, and in the end the plot becomes a bit too preachy for its own good, just as "Men of Honor" did. It's as though the filmmakers didn't trust their audience to make any connections on their own and had to point out the story's messages in bold, uppercase letters. There is also a too-coincidental discovery at the end of the trial that tends to undermine the plot's credibility, plus a conclusion that is both an upper and a downer at the same time. I suspect that if the movie had had a clearer focus about more of its points and characters, it might have carried even a stronger impact.
Despite these reservations, however, I enjoyed "Hart's War" and found its worthy intentions, its superior acting, its dark tone, and, especially, its minute attention to period detail engrossing. And I should mention, too, that more than the wide-eyed Hart or the dour-faced McNamara, it is, not surprisingly, the scoundrel of the piece, Col. Visser, who practically steals the show. We start out hating him for his stereotypical, Nazi, one-sided brutishness, and then come to know him more as a human being. I'll leave it to you to decide how you feel about him by the end of the film.
Video:
Though some of the nighttime scenes are grainy, for the most part the Blu-ray version is quite an upgrade over the standard disc. John complained that the picture was "dusky and at times somewhat murky," with the image "never perfectly distinct or well delineated, but the colors natural enough when they're not hidden away in dim shadows." In 1080p, most of that disappears. The color palette is indeed muted, and as I said there are a few scenes that are grainy, but the rest of the film is as sharp as most of the Blu-ray releases. The picture (2.35:1) was transferred to a 25GB single-layer disc using MPEG-2 technology at 18MBPS.
Audio:
Once again, the audio on a Blu-ray is almost flawless. The feature soundtrack option is an English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio, with lesser options in French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and subtitles in English (CC) and Spanish. The sound effects are amazing during action scenes, but as John noticed with the 5.1 compressed soundtrack, even little noises like creaking boards come to life with this rich and hyper-sensitive soundtrack.
Extras:
Except for a theatrical trailer in HD, there are no extras. So if you already own the DVD, with its two audio commentaries (one with Bruce Willis, director Gregory Hoblit, and cowriter Billy Ray, and another with co-producer David Foster) you'll need to hang on to that. The SD version also had five deleted scenes and a photo gallery that are missing here. Sorry Blu-ray fans. Once again, quantity is sacrificed for quality, though you have to wonder why they're not utilizing those 50-gig dual-layer discs more often.
Parting Thoughts:
I sneaked a look at the Internet Movie Database to check out the film's grosses and discovered it didn't do so well at the box office. I can understand why. "Hart's War" is basically a gloomy affair, unrelenting in its realism but with little physical action after its opening sequence and a touch too much sentimentality and moralizing at the end. Nevertheless, with its strong cast, noble virtues, and ambitious themes, the movie is worth one's attention for a least a single viewing. I'm not sure the bleak subject matter would hold up to further watching, yet for most of its course that first sitting is gripping and satisfying. That's more than can be said for a lot of films, which aren't worth ten minutes of our time.
The setting is Belgium, December 16, 1944. Young Lt. Thomas Hart (Colin Farrell) is sent to drive another officer to the front. On the way they're attacked, and Hart is captured and sent to a German POW camp. This opening scene is one of the most brutally vivid and exciting I've seen in some time. It lasts only a few minutes, but it sets the tone for the rest of the movie--not for its action, necessarily, because there is very little further overt violence after this scene in the movie, but for its gritty realism. From the point Hart enters the prisoner-of-war compound, the movie becomes an uncompromising test of wills among three men: Lt. Hart; Col. William A. McNamara (Willis), the ranking American officer in the camp; and Col. Werner Visser (Marcel Iures), the German commandant.
At first blush, the film and its situations may seem mere copies of "Stalag 17" and "The Great Escape," but with the introduction of two additional prisoners, both of them African-American flying officers, the film takes on the ambitions of a film like "Men of Honor." The armed services were not well integrated in WWII, and the black officers immediately come into conflict with the racism and bigotry of the Germans soldiers as well as many of the white prisoners. This condition precipitates the film's major conflict, the killing of one of the black men, then the killing of one of the white prisoners, and, finally, a climactic courtroom scene.
Col. McNamara persuades Col. Visser to allow a trial as a kind of amusement for the men, German and American. The man on trial is Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), one of the two black officers and a fellow clearly innocent of the murder he's accused of. Young Mr. Hart is assigned by McNamara to defend Scott, ostensibly because Hart has had a year of law school before the War.
It's a tough-minded tale, and at its center McNamara and Hart are tough-minded men. McNamara is an old-line West Point man; what's more, his father and his father's father were West Point men. The army is in his blood, and he resents no longer being able to participate in the war. The trial appears to be his way of fighting back, of being in the war. Hart, on the other hand, is the son of a congressman. He's lived a more pampered life, and he's never seen real action until now. Yet his convictions are as strong as McNamara's when it comes to justice and integrity, which is what any case eventually comes down to. The film is not titled "Hart's War" for nothing.
The movie is unhesitating and decidedly unglamorous in its examination of human emotions. As it proceeds, we begin to doubt McNamara's motives for the trial. Is he really trying to serve his men and his country, or is he only out for himself? Does he have some secret reason for wanting this trial to come off, and why is he so insistent it be carried out according to strictest military regulations? Here the film becomes momentarily murky until its conclusion. Be patient.
The story line attempts to address some serious issues concerning war and courage, racism and hatred, sacrifice and honor, heroism and villainy. But there may be more issues here than the movie can adequately expound, and in the end the plot becomes a bit too preachy for its own good, just as "Men of Honor" did. It's as though the filmmakers didn't trust their audience to make any connections on their own and had to point out the story's messages in bold, uppercase letters. There is also a too-coincidental discovery at the end of the trial that tends to undermine the plot's credibility, plus a conclusion that is both an upper and a downer at the same time. I suspect that if the movie had had a clearer focus about more of its points and characters, it might have carried even a stronger impact.
Despite these reservations, however, I enjoyed "Hart's War" and found its worthy intentions, its superior acting, its dark tone, and, especially, its minute attention to period detail engrossing. And I should mention, too, that more than the wide-eyed Hart or the dour-faced McNamara, it is, not surprisingly, the scoundrel of the piece, Col. Visser, who practically steals the show. We start out hating him for his stereotypical, Nazi, one-sided brutishness, and then come to know him more as a human being. I'll leave it to you to decide how you feel about him by the end of the film.
Video:
Though some of the nighttime scenes are grainy, for the most part the Blu-ray version is quite an upgrade over the standard disc. John complained that the picture was "dusky and at times somewhat murky," with the image "never perfectly distinct or well delineated, but the colors natural enough when they're not hidden away in dim shadows." In 1080p, most of that disappears. The color palette is indeed muted, and as I said there are a few scenes that are grainy, but the rest of the film is as sharp as most of the Blu-ray releases. The picture (2.35:1) was transferred to a 25GB single-layer disc using MPEG-2 technology at 18MBPS.
Audio:
Once again, the audio on a Blu-ray is almost flawless. The feature soundtrack option is an English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio, with lesser options in French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and subtitles in English (CC) and Spanish. The sound effects are amazing during action scenes, but as John noticed with the 5.1 compressed soundtrack, even little noises like creaking boards come to life with this rich and hyper-sensitive soundtrack.
Extras:
Except for a theatrical trailer in HD, there are no extras. So if you already own the DVD, with its two audio commentaries (one with Bruce Willis, director Gregory Hoblit, and cowriter Billy Ray, and another with co-producer David Foster) you'll need to hang on to that. The SD version also had five deleted scenes and a photo gallery that are missing here. Sorry Blu-ray fans. Once again, quantity is sacrificed for quality, though you have to wonder why they're not utilizing those 50-gig dual-layer discs more often.
Parting Thoughts:
I sneaked a look at the Internet Movie Database to check out the film's grosses and discovered it didn't do so well at the box office. I can understand why. "Hart's War" is basically a gloomy affair, unrelenting in its realism but with little physical action after its opening sequence and a touch too much sentimentality and moralizing at the end. Nevertheless, with its strong cast, noble virtues, and ambitious themes, the movie is worth one's attention for a least a single viewing. I'm not sure the bleak subject matter would hold up to further watching, yet for most of its course that first sitting is gripping and satisfying. That's more than can be said for a lot of films, which aren't worth ten minutes of our time.
Some time ago Bruce Willis said he wanted to give up doing superhero action roles, but he never said anything about giving up heroic roles. In the 2002 film "Hart's War" he plays a man of strong convictions, strong instincts, and strong loyalties. Neither the film nor its characters break any new ground, but for most of its running time it is an intelligent and compelling prisoner-of-war story that resorts to very little on-screen violence. Few war movies can boast such credentials.
The setting is Belgium, December 16, 1944. Young Lt. Thomas Hart (Colin Farrell) is sent to drive another officer to the front. On the way they're attacked, and Hart is captured and sent to a German POW camp. This opening scene is one of the most brutally vivid and exciting I've seen in some time. It lasts only a few minutes, but it sets the tone for the rest of the movie--not for its action, necessarily, because there is very little further overt violence after this scene in the movie, but for its gritty realism. From the point Hart enters the prisoner-of-war compound, the movie becomes an uncompromising test of wills among three men: Lt. Hart; Col. William A. McNamara (Willis), the ranking American officer in the camp; and Col. Werner Visser (Marcel Iures), the German commandant.
At first blush, the film and its situations may seem mere copies of "Stalag 17" and "The Great Escape," but with the introduction of two additional prisoners, both of them African-American flying officers, the film takes on the ambitions of a film like "Men of Honor." The armed services were not well integrated in WWII, and the black officers immediately come into conflict with the racism and bigotry of the Germans soldiers as well as many of the white prisoners. This condition precipitates the film's major conflict, the killing of one of the black men, then the killing of one of the white prisoners, and, finally, a climactic courtroom scene.
Col. McNamara persuades Col. Visser to allow a trial as a kind of amusement for the men, German and American. The man on trial is Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), one of the two black officers and a fellow clearly innocent of the murder he's accused of. Young Mr. Hart is assigned by McNamara to defend Scott, ostensibly because Hart has had a year of law school before the War.
It's a tough-minded tale, and at its center McNamara and Hart are tough-minded men. McNamara is an old-line West Point man; what's more, his father and his father's father were West Point men. The army is in his blood, and he resents no longer being able to participate in the war. The trial appears to be his way of fighting back, of being in the war. Hart, on the other hand, is the son of a congressman. He's lived a more pampered life, and he's never seen real action until now. Yet his convictions are as strong as McNamara's when it comes to justice and integrity, which is what any case eventually comes down to. The film is not titled "Hart's War" for nothing.
The movie is unhesitating and decidedly unglamorous in its examination of human emotions. As it proceeds, we begin to doubt McNamara's motives for the trial. Is he really trying to serve his men and his country, or is he only out for himself? Does he have some secret reason for wanting this trial to come off, and why is he so insistent it be carried out according to strictest military regulations? Here the film becomes momentarily murky until its conclusion. Be patient.
The story line attempts to address some serious issues concerning war and courage, racism and hatred, sacrifice and honor, heroism and villainy. But there may be more issues here than the movie can adequately expound, and in the end the plot becomes a bit too preachy for its own good, just as "Men of Honor" did. It's as though the filmmakers didn't trust their audience to make any connections on their own and had to point out the story's messages in bold, uppercase letters. There is also a too-coincidental discovery at the end of the trial that tends to undermine the plot's credibility, plus a conclusion that is both an upper and a downer at the same time. I suspect that if the movie had had a clearer focus about more of its points and characters, it might have carried even a stronger impact.
Despite these reservations, however, I enjoyed "Hart's War" and found its worthy intentions, its superior acting, its dark tone, and, especially, its minute attention to period detail engrossing. And I should mention, too, that more than the wide-eyed Hart or the dour-faced McNamara, it is, not surprisingly, the scoundrel of the piece, Col. Visser, who practically steals the show. We start out hating him for his stereotypical, Nazi, one-sided brutishness, and then come to know him more as a human being. I'll leave it to you to decide how you feel about him by the end of the film.
Video:
Though some of the nighttime scenes are grainy, for the most part the Blu-ray version is quite an upgrade over the standard disc. John complained that the picture was "dusky and at times somewhat murky," with the image "never perfectly distinct or well delineated, but the colors natural enough when they're not hidden away in dim shadows." In 1080p, most of that disappears. The color palette is indeed muted, and as I said there are a few scenes that are grainy, but the rest of the film is as sharp as most of the Blu-ray releases. The picture (2.35:1) was transferred to a 25GB single-layer disc using MPEG-2 technology at 18MBPS.
Audio:
Once again, the audio on a Blu-ray is almost flawless. The feature soundtrack option is an English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio, with lesser options in French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and subtitles in English (CC) and Spanish. The sound effects are amazing during action scenes, but as John noticed with the 5.1 compressed soundtrack, even little noises like creaking boards come to life with this rich and hyper-sensitive soundtrack.
Extras:
Except for a theatrical trailer in HD, there are no extras. So if you already own the DVD, with its two audio commentaries (one with Bruce Willis, director Gregory Hoblit, and cowriter Billy Ray, and another with co-producer David Foster) you'll need to hang on to that. The SD version also had five deleted scenes and a photo gallery that are missing here. Sorry Blu-ray fans. Once again, quantity is sacrificed for quality, though you have to wonder why they're not utilizing those 50-gig dual-layer discs more often.
Parting Thoughts:
I sneaked a look at the Internet Movie Database to check out the film's grosses and discovered it didn't do so well at the box office. I can understand why. "Hart's War" is basically a gloomy affair, unrelenting in its realism but with little physical action after its opening sequence and a touch too much sentimentality and moralizing at the end. Nevertheless, with its strong cast, noble virtues, and ambitious themes, the movie is worth one's attention for a least a single viewing. I'm not sure the bleak subject matter would hold up to further watching, yet for most of its course that first sitting is gripping and satisfying. That's more than can be said for a lot of films, which aren't worth ten minutes of our time.
The setting is Belgium, December 16, 1944. Young Lt. Thomas Hart (Colin Farrell) is sent to drive another officer to the front. On the way they're attacked, and Hart is captured and sent to a German POW camp. This opening scene is one of the most brutally vivid and exciting I've seen in some time. It lasts only a few minutes, but it sets the tone for the rest of the movie--not for its action, necessarily, because there is very little further overt violence after this scene in the movie, but for its gritty realism. From the point Hart enters the prisoner-of-war compound, the movie becomes an uncompromising test of wills among three men: Lt. Hart; Col. William A. McNamara (Willis), the ranking American officer in the camp; and Col. Werner Visser (Marcel Iures), the German commandant.
At first blush, the film and its situations may seem mere copies of "Stalag 17" and "The Great Escape," but with the introduction of two additional prisoners, both of them African-American flying officers, the film takes on the ambitions of a film like "Men of Honor." The armed services were not well integrated in WWII, and the black officers immediately come into conflict with the racism and bigotry of the Germans soldiers as well as many of the white prisoners. This condition precipitates the film's major conflict, the killing of one of the black men, then the killing of one of the white prisoners, and, finally, a climactic courtroom scene.
Col. McNamara persuades Col. Visser to allow a trial as a kind of amusement for the men, German and American. The man on trial is Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), one of the two black officers and a fellow clearly innocent of the murder he's accused of. Young Mr. Hart is assigned by McNamara to defend Scott, ostensibly because Hart has had a year of law school before the War.
It's a tough-minded tale, and at its center McNamara and Hart are tough-minded men. McNamara is an old-line West Point man; what's more, his father and his father's father were West Point men. The army is in his blood, and he resents no longer being able to participate in the war. The trial appears to be his way of fighting back, of being in the war. Hart, on the other hand, is the son of a congressman. He's lived a more pampered life, and he's never seen real action until now. Yet his convictions are as strong as McNamara's when it comes to justice and integrity, which is what any case eventually comes down to. The film is not titled "Hart's War" for nothing.
The movie is unhesitating and decidedly unglamorous in its examination of human emotions. As it proceeds, we begin to doubt McNamara's motives for the trial. Is he really trying to serve his men and his country, or is he only out for himself? Does he have some secret reason for wanting this trial to come off, and why is he so insistent it be carried out according to strictest military regulations? Here the film becomes momentarily murky until its conclusion. Be patient.
The story line attempts to address some serious issues concerning war and courage, racism and hatred, sacrifice and honor, heroism and villainy. But there may be more issues here than the movie can adequately expound, and in the end the plot becomes a bit too preachy for its own good, just as "Men of Honor" did. It's as though the filmmakers didn't trust their audience to make any connections on their own and had to point out the story's messages in bold, uppercase letters. There is also a too-coincidental discovery at the end of the trial that tends to undermine the plot's credibility, plus a conclusion that is both an upper and a downer at the same time. I suspect that if the movie had had a clearer focus about more of its points and characters, it might have carried even a stronger impact.
Despite these reservations, however, I enjoyed "Hart's War" and found its worthy intentions, its superior acting, its dark tone, and, especially, its minute attention to period detail engrossing. And I should mention, too, that more than the wide-eyed Hart or the dour-faced McNamara, it is, not surprisingly, the scoundrel of the piece, Col. Visser, who practically steals the show. We start out hating him for his stereotypical, Nazi, one-sided brutishness, and then come to know him more as a human being. I'll leave it to you to decide how you feel about him by the end of the film.
Video:
Though some of the nighttime scenes are grainy, for the most part the Blu-ray version is quite an upgrade over the standard disc. John complained that the picture was "dusky and at times somewhat murky," with the image "never perfectly distinct or well delineated, but the colors natural enough when they're not hidden away in dim shadows." In 1080p, most of that disappears. The color palette is indeed muted, and as I said there are a few scenes that are grainy, but the rest of the film is as sharp as most of the Blu-ray releases. The picture (2.35:1) was transferred to a 25GB single-layer disc using MPEG-2 technology at 18MBPS.
Audio:
Once again, the audio on a Blu-ray is almost flawless. The feature soundtrack option is an English DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio, with lesser options in French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and subtitles in English (CC) and Spanish. The sound effects are amazing during action scenes, but as John noticed with the 5.1 compressed soundtrack, even little noises like creaking boards come to life with this rich and hyper-sensitive soundtrack.
Extras:
Except for a theatrical trailer in HD, there are no extras. So if you already own the DVD, with its two audio commentaries (one with Bruce Willis, director Gregory Hoblit, and cowriter Billy Ray, and another with co-producer David Foster) you'll need to hang on to that. The SD version also had five deleted scenes and a photo gallery that are missing here. Sorry Blu-ray fans. Once again, quantity is sacrificed for quality, though you have to wonder why they're not utilizing those 50-gig dual-layer discs more often.
Parting Thoughts:
I sneaked a look at the Internet Movie Database to check out the film's grosses and discovered it didn't do so well at the box office. I can understand why. "Hart's War" is basically a gloomy affair, unrelenting in its realism but with little physical action after its opening sequence and a touch too much sentimentality and moralizing at the end. Nevertheless, with its strong cast, noble virtues, and ambitious themes, the movie is worth one's attention for a least a single viewing. I'm not sure the bleak subject matter would hold up to further watching, yet for most of its course that first sitting is gripping and satisfying. That's more than can be said for a lot of films, which aren't worth ten minutes of our time.
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