Movie- The Great Raid

There is nothing wrong with an old-fashioned war movie. A movie that is not trying to tell the story of moral ambiguity or how war warps people's minds, but a movie about heroism and daring deeds. The Great Raid (2005) is one of those movies, and a true story to boot.

Of course most of these old-fashioned war movies need to be set in WW II because there was a lot less moral ambiguity in that war. It is set in the Phillipines as America tries to take those islands back from Japan near the end of the war. Japan had many prisoner of war camps there, and the Japanese were known for their brutality to enemies in that era. So they were killing the prisoners in terrible ways, rather than allowing them to be rescued by the advancing Americans.

The raid is to rescue all the prisoners in one of these camps, to get ahead of the advancing lines, into territory still held by the enemy, and save these hundreds of men.

Benjamin Bratt and James Franco play the men who led this successfull mission and they both do good jobs. The scenes interplay between the rescuers and the POWs who are trying to still survive amidst starvation and illness, nevermind the beating and brutality. And there is another story line of the underground movement in the Phillipines who are trying to aid POWS. Joseph Fiennes plays the head officer in the camp, who has worked with the underground that is being now also being slaughtered by the Japanese.

The raid itself is the nexus of the movie, and plays out heroically. It is one of those war movie moments when the good and the bad are clearly defined, and the good wins out. Like I said, an old-fashioned war movie---and I mean that as a compliment.