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The Movie:
A big-budget ($70m, reportedly) war drama from director John Dahl ("Red Rock West"), "The Great Raid" was completed in 2002 and sat on the shelf until 2005. The film, while not without flaws, deserved better treatment than that. "Raid" focuses on the massive rescue mission that took place during WWII in the Philippines, with soliders from the Philippines and the US mounting a surprise attack on a Japanese-run POW camp with 500 prisoners. With the Japanese planning to kill the prisoners before leaving the island shortly, there's only a limited window of time to pull off the raid.
In steps Lt. Colonel Mucci (Benjamin Bratt) and his soldiers, including Captain Prince (James Franco), the "best trained, least proven" squad who are chosen to lead the mission. Elsewhere, a nurse (Connie Neilsen, of "Gladiator") leads an underground movement that has been sneaking whatever medicine and supplies they can to the surviving prisoners, including Major Gibson (Joseph Fiennes), who have been living in brutal, horrific conditions.
Straightforward and dry, "The Great Raid" is an old-fashioned, unslick war drama that remains unsentimental and doesn't have that much at all in the way of visual effects. The budget has obviously gone instead to the sets, period details and battle sequences (The action scenes towards the end are well-staged and exceptionally tense), among other aspects. Overall, it's certainly a great-looking film, with excellent cinematography (by Peter Menzies Jr., "Four Brothers") and production design (by Bruno Rubeo, "Thomas Crown Affair") and other technical highlights.
Unfortunately, one wishes that more would have gone into casting, as Bratt's rather flat performance does not carry the film as well as it should have. Supporting efforts, including Franco, Neilsen (who is good, although her character could have been trimmed out of the story to tighten pacing and develop the other characters better), Fiennes and Marton Csokas (as another POW) fair better.
While I wasn't too impressed with Bratt's performance and thought the film could be trimmed in some parts (although I was never bored), "The Great Raid" is an otherwise very compelling war drama that looks at an amazing, courageous rescue mission. Newsreel footage of the actual events is played under the credits.
The DVD
VIDEO: "The Great Raid" is presented by Miramax in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen for this director's cut release. Aspects of the presentation are quite good, although some flaws are spotted throughout. In terms of problems, the biggest issue is edge enhancement, as moderate amounts are seen in a handful of scenes. It's not a major distraction, but it's still noticable. A few minor traces of pixelation were also spotted, as well. No print flaws or other concerns were seen.
The presentation mostly looked sharp and well-defined, although occasional scenes looked slightly softer than the rest. Colors understandably looked desaturated, but seemed accurately presented.
SOUND: The film's Dolby Digital 5.1 presentation is, like the movie, fairly straightforward. The action sequences do use the surrounds to deliver sound effects and envelop the user in the sounds of battle, but don't do so in a way that's as aggressive as some similar, recent films have. Still, this is a very enjoyable audio presentation that offers excellent audio quality, with crisp dialogue, music and effects.
EXTRAS: The film includes a commentary with Director John Dahl, Producer Marty Katz, Technical Advisor Dale Dye, Editor Scott Chestnut and Author Hampton Sides. This is a very enjoyable, very insightful commentary that is a mixture of discussion of the actual details of the time period and events and the difficulties in the production of the film (such as the efforts taken to transform Australia into the Philippines, and training the actors.)
Although somewhat promotional, the 19-minute "Price of Freedom" is a mostly enjoyable "making of" documentary that looks at the history (and provides interviews with some of the actual soliders who were POWs) and shows the actors going into boot camp. We also learn more about shooting on location, trying to be accurate to the historical facts and more production issues that the filmmakers had to figure out during the filming. Finally, the deleted scenes also includes a deleted scenes section.
The second disc starts off with the haunting hour-long documentary, "Ghosts of Bataan, which chronicles the real-life events shown in the film. The documentary offers a wealth of interviews with survivors and historians, as well as a great deal of newsreel footage. "The Veterans Remember" is a much shorter piece that offers additional interviews with former military officers, who remember the events of the time. "History Lesson with author Hampton Sides" is a 15-minute interview with the author, who gives an overview of the events shown in the film, as well as what lead up to them.
"Dale Dye's Boot Camp" takes a look at the experiences the soldiers had while training under the film's legendary military consultant, Dale Dye ("Thin Red Line", "Saving Private Ryan", "Band of Brothers" and many others). We also get outtake footage of additional training moments and a dedication to the soldiers of Bataan.
Finally, we get a featurette on the sound design, an interactive timeline and a feature where one can isolate different elements of the audio for the raid sequence.
Final Thoughts: Although I had a few issues with it, I found this to be a mostly very engaging, very straightforward war drama that deserved a better release. Miramax's DVD edition provides good video quality and excellent audio quality, as well as a wealth of supplemental features. However, the $40 price tag is pretty high, and results in making this only recommended as a rental for those interested.
Film Grade
The Film B+
DVD Grades
Video 89/B+
Audio: 89/B+
Extras: 89/B+
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