Rescue Dawn, a film starring Christian Bale as Dieter Dengler, a US pilot on his first mission for the army during the Vietnam war, a film by acclaimed director Werner Herzog it's a real life story about Dengler being shot down in his very first mission and being captured into a vietnam war camp with a group of 5/6 other individuals captured over a period of 2/3 years.

The film portrays the goings on in the jungle of Vietnam after his plane is shot down, he tries to survive for hours, days without being found but is ultimatly captured, with little food, little water, no cleaning facilities and overzealous guards Dengler vows to escape as soon as possible and not sit around with the others waiting to be rescued 2 years down the line, which one of the captures is sure of, he befriends a certain member of the group to look after and help out who is clearly losing it a little, he vows to escape on the night of July 4th (why they'd pick an obvious night to escape...).

The film is obviously a true story which makes the whole thing alot more poignant and each and every emotion more hard hitting, the film is split into 4 clear stages from the beginning through to the end from the start of the mission to the attempt at escape. I did think that at some points of the film it dragged a little, this was more in the 2nd quarter of the film for me, maybe because it was late at night but about 30 minutes in I started losing concentration, we went back to it the next day however and the final hour was very good indeed, it reminded me a little of the film To End All Wars with Robert Carlisle and Kiefer Sutherland (Brilliant film by the way...), although I don't think this was quite as good.

The acting, well it is Christian Bale so thats probably all that needs to be said, a superb actor and doesn't let down in this, everyone knows what they're getting with Christian Bale now...I just wish he never joined the whole Batman phase. Throughout the film we can see and feel the hurt and physical and mental torture that Dengler must have been going through, especially as numerous US airforce go past without even blinking an eyelid at Dengler and his compatriots below, the feeling of wanting to give us must have been great, this comes across very well with Bales acting. There's also support from Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies who are both superb as fellow captures, one whom is convinced a rescue is around the corner and the other whom is losing his mind and wants to get out of the camp and decides to follow Dengler's escape plan.

The soundtrack, well there wasn't really much of one, this film used the emotional aspect and the tension to portray the emotions of the film and didn't let music get in the way of that, as for the special features they were severley lacking on the dvd we purchases, however it did have a group of trailers (I love trailers) of numerous films which we watched prior to the film.

Overall, it being a true story obviously helped us get into the film a little more, it did slightly drag before Bale actually arrived at the Vietnam war camp and I'm not sure if that was just me, overall however the film was actually very good, not a classic and not worth top marks but am glad I purchased it and will no doubt watch it back at some point. There can be the odd funny moment, you feel emotionally attatched to the characters being a true story and just wonder what they must have all gone through.

Good film.