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A war movie for those who hate war movies, the perhaps mistitled "Hart's War" contains a number of surprises, some embedded in its script. (Can a film set in a German POW camp really be about black/white relations?) and some hovering on the periphery (Who knew Bruce Willis could give such a graceful, restrained performance?) But each unexpected twist feels somehow necessary, the result being that this Gregory Hoblit feature -- competently acted and engrossing to the very end -- is considerably more entertaining than it has a right to be. Hart of darkness
Unexpected twists and layers of
deception make "Hart's War" more
than a drill in patriotismBy Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.comGetting down to business immediately, "Hart's War" opens with the capture of Lt. Thomas Hart (Colin Farrell) by Germans, who subsequently transfer him, via cramped boxcars that recall "Schindler's List," to Stalag VI in Augsburg. There, squeezed into tiny barracks and surrounded by American servicemen of every rank, he tries to make sense of this fresh hell. (You know the drill: There's the belligerent Southern guy, the quiet bespectacled one, etc.) Suffice it to say that the pampered and doe-eyed Hart (his father's a senator) does not immediately make friends, especially after lying to the camp's unofficial commander, Col. McNamara (Bruce Willis), about the circumstances of his capture. Despite Hart's status as an officer, he is assigned a bunk in the enlisted men's quarters.
Rated R "Hart's War"
Playing at Consolidated Kapolei, Koko Marina, Ko'olau, Mililani, Pearlridge & Ward; Signature Dole Cannery, Pearl Highlands& Windward; and Wallace Enchanted Lake
"Hart's War," so far completely unremarkable, takes an intriguing turn with the arrival of two black bomber pilots, Lt. Scott (Terrence Howard) and Lt. Archer (Vicellous Shannon) who quickly discover that they are as despised by their own countrymen as the Germans. When Archer is murdered by the Germans for supposedly caching a weapon, Hart becomes suspicious of complicity on the part of certain Americans and their German captors. And when a second murder is committed, this one even more questionable, he launches a private investigation into the underlying loyalties of his fellow prisoners, exposing the deceptions layer by layer.
"Everything in this place is a lie," says Hart late in the game -- and the truth, when finally ascertained, is a brutal, half-ugly thing.
The dramatic centerpiece of the film is a courtroom battle, the German commander (Marcel Iures) having allowed the Americans to conduct a murder trial, apparently for his own amusement. Hart, who's only a second-year Yale law student, is counsel for the defense, and it's here that Farrell demonstrates a memorable screen presence that virtually assures stardom in some form. His transition from fey ingenue to commanding figure is accomplished almost imperceptibly and his mop-topped cranium appears to be thinking at every moment.
Would that last year's "Pearl Harbor" was blessed with such a covey of young talents. Of course, "Pearl" was disastrously written, providing almost nothing for its actors to do, whereas "Hart" is really an actor's film. (Squib fans needn't worry, however. There's plenty of bone-rattling destruction in a few sequences.) Screenwriters Billy Ray and Terry George, based on a novel by John Katzenbach, have concocted a commendable Chinese box of a script that, while heavy-handed at moments, provides real drama and not a few multidimensional characters.
It doesn't pack the pow of the classic POW films, but "Hart's War" is nonetheless compelling, not least for its (suddenly old-fashioned) jaundiced look at American character. In a time of feverish media flag-waving, there's something comforting about a movie daring to look inside the sometimes dark hearts of heroes.
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