Hart's War
Review by By Clint Morris
 Like
even the finest of pan-fried bacon, Gregory Hoblit's Hart's
War crackles and sizzles for the most part, but it's made
of up of a large mass of unnecessary elements. The meal on
offer in this case is a war drama; the side serving of poached
eggs, if you will, is Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell.
To slot Hart's War into the category of "the
latest Bruce Willis flick" would be a mistake. For a
start, the converted Die Hard alumni made a radical
departure from cliché action a while back; and this
film, too, is as far away from anything he's notorious for.
But, in essence, Hart's War is still a pretty undercooked,
run of the mill movie.
Hart's War, or Paradise Road: With a Vengeance,
if you will, is - for the first hour - similar to Beresford's
Paradise Road, but then for the final half, an unnecessary
court room drama.
The film is the legend of Lt. Tommy Hart (Colin Farrell),
a civilized, naive, but primarily brittle law student from
Yale who finds himself separated from his squad and imprisoned
in a tough POW camp. He's soon alienated by most of his fellow
American prisoners as well and gets caught up in a moral quagmire
after he's nominated defence lawyer in a bizarre prisoner-run
POW camp trial in the declining weeks of the war.
Shielding Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), a black Tuskegee
pilot falsely accused of murdering a prejudiced fellow American
prisoner (Hauser), Hart battles before a prisoner's court-martial
that may have been rigged by either the stalag's standing
U.S. officer, questionable oaf Col. William McNamara (Bruce
Willis), or by its refined Nazi leader, Col. Werner Visser
(Marcel Iures). Regardless, he's going to get the man off
anyway he can.
The problem with Hart's War is that it doesn't know
whether it wants to be a courtroom drama or traditional war
story. The whole aspect of whites vs. blacks in the Nazi prison
camps is just absurd; surely there are bigger problems on
hand at these times. You'd think they would stick together
in times like these.
But there's only so much harking one can do on that element:
it's based on the memoirs of John Katzenbach, whose father
witnessed first hand the prejudice that went on in such camps
- it happened, I just don't know that it makes for engrossing
storytelling.
To have concentrated more on the camp itself and being imprisoned
by the enemy would have been a much more entertaining element
- sort of a dramatic Hogan's Heroes if you will.
At the end of the day, it's the acting that keeps the film
chugging along. Farrell is significantly better than the out-of-place
Willis, but the support cast even more inspired. Terrence
Howard is immersing as the innocent on trial, and as Col.
Werner Vissel, Marcel Iures is a revelation. He's an interesting
blend of emotion, a dark, sad-eyed monster with a deeply-buried
sympathetic soul. This character is definitely the movie's
high point and, a few more of these high point's and Hart's
War could have been much more entertaining than it is.
3 out of 5
Hart's War
Australian release: Thursday May 30th
Cast: Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Cole Hauser,
Vicellous Shannon, Marcel Iures.
Director: Gregory Hoblit.
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