Rescue Dawn

A decade ago, Werner Herzog directed the extraordinary documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, about U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, whose plane was shot down minutes into its first mission during the dawn of the Vietnam War. Dengler crash-landed in Laos, and was quickly captured. At the prison camp, he befriended a small group of POWs, with whom he planned a daring escape attempt.

It’s a survival story for the ages, and an ideal one for Herzog to tell. His films have always centered on men struggling to survive under extreme conditions, with insanity and death always looming overhead. Dengler is among the few Herzog protagonists who managed to survive, and though his story is ultimately inspiring, the uncensored detail of his suffering (as well as that of his fellow prisoners) is what continues to haunt viewers long after the credits roll.

Now Herzog presents Dengler’s story in narrative form, with Christian Bale capturing the man’s optimistic spirit, if not his essence. This is not at all the fault of Bale, whose unwavering dedication to the role caused him to drop a dramatic amount of weight (similar to his even more jaw-dropping transformation in The Machinist). Bale acts the hell out of the role, but the script never quite manages to get inside his head.

I’ve always felt Herzog’s filmic artistry worked stronger in the documentary format rather than the narrative. That is not to say Herzog is better at nonfiction. He willingly admits that his documentaries are full of fabrications—often used to heighten the film’s dramatic impact. Some of the most unforgettable elements in Little Dieter (his paranoid habits, his repeated encounter with a hungry bear) were entirely fictional, yet allowed the audience to truly delve into the emotional (if not literal) reality of Dieter’s experience.

The psychological complexity conveyed so well in his documentaries often vanish from view in his narrative work. For all the jaw-dropping scope of Herzog’s revered Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), its characters always seemed to emerge as hollow caricatures. Similarly in Rescue Dawn, the action has a gripping reality, while Dieter remains a two-dimensional curiosity. His stubborn patriotism and almost cheerfully simplistic mindset can only carry the audience so far before they start wondering what’s under the façade. Though Herzog wisely refuses to politicize the story, his seeming indifference toward Dieter’s childish philosophy runs the risk of being flat-out maddening.

Yet as a pure suspense picture, Rescue Dawn is riveting from beginning to end. Dieter’s plan for escape is followed with nearly as much detail as in the documentary, and it’s still fascinating. Herzog effectively reuses period footage of war carnage and an amusingly cheesy military training film, both also included in the documentary. What makes Rescue Dawn truly worthwhile is its uncompromisingly stark atmosphere, utilizing de-saturated cinematography and impeccable locations to make the audience feel the prisoner’s own claustrophobic confinement.

The ensemble cast of fellow POWs is uniformly superb, including a horrifically gaunt Jeremy Davies (channeling Dennis Hopper from Apocalypse Now), and an utterly heartbreaking Steve Zahn as Dieter’s most dedicated friend, the ill-fated Duane. Zahn, best known as the goofy comic relief in fluff like That Thing You Do!, steals the film from his more famous co-stars, proving himself to be a remarkable dramatic actor. A mere hopeless glance from his sunken face is enough to draw tears.

Though Herzog nearly botches the ending with an extended, and surprisingly hokey, military celebration, Rescue Dawn is a solidly satisfying adventure yarn from one of the world’s greatest filmmakers.

Rating: **** (out of *****)