James Christopher
Iconic Films
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From
November 22, 2007
Rescue Dawn
Rescue Dawn is a deeply odd Vietnam War movie about an American pilot (Christian Bale) who is shot down on his first (illegal) mission into Laos. I say odd because Werner Herzog’s movie is an utterly harrowing account of the bleak horror of torture and incarceration in a jungle prison. It also offers spooky similarities to Bale’s traumatic role in Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun and Herzog’s own 1997 documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly.
The performances are worryingly Method. Bale eats bowls of maggots. I had to look away when he tucked into a live snake. Jeremy Davies’s annoying acting tics are perfectly suited to his deranged GI. And Steve Zahn is a ghastly wonder as the only other stick-thin survivor. The weepy ending sticks in the throat.
Rescue Dawn
12A, 125mins
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I would imagine that what worries him is the eating of maggots - as method as method gets, really.
your failure to understand that makes yours one of the feeblest reviews I have yet read on this website.
kat, manchester,
I think that is one of the feeblest reviews I have yet read in the Times
The 'spooky' similarity to Little Dieter Needs to Sleep is because Rescue Dawn is a movie about Dieter Dengler's true story.
Why is James Cristopher so worried by method acting?
Ed, london,