A U.S. fighter pilot's epic struggle of survival after being shot down on a mission over Laos during the Vietnam War. Rescue Dawn packs 2 great leading performances by Christian Bale (The Dark Knight Trilogy) and Steve Zahn (Speak) but although it's based upon a true story i didn't feel that much of energy as other films of this genre like Hacksaw Ridge or even Lone Survivor and i understand that the film was meant to be like this have a lot of long conversations and try to showcase upon these 2 men to try escape from that village that they were taken hostage but i honestly believe that a bit more action would have made it much better but that doesn't mean that the film was bad it was very well shot and edited and Christian Bale was really good here as i already said now my second flaw with the movie was that the plane crush sequence looked horrible with cgi effects that look like they came out of an 80's film but overall Rescue Dawn is a great true story film about a man that wants to escape and go back home and for that i'm going to give it an 7.3 out of 10!!!

What a perplexingly weird movie. What makes it even weirder is, it's based on a real person and event. Typically if a movie is based around a real event, the movie goes for more of a realism type approach, but I'm not sure what the the movie was trying to achieve? Did they not want to depress the audience, so they decided to cover this story in a way that the audience wouldn't have to be emotionally impacted by it? Where to begin? When Dieter (Christian Bale) gets captured and brought to the leader (not sure the leaders title). His demeanor was that of a US teenager in Europe for spring break or at least the way movies like to portray American teens over seas. Cocky, like the world owes them something and just immature, whereas I can't imagine anyone in a situation where they were captured acting like that. It gets weirder as it goes into the various torture thing they do to Dieter... it's done in more of a comedic way, rather than upsetting. The fact that it's based on a real person makes me think that no, and someone completely dropped the ball and if I had to guess that someone was Christian Bale. As if he was incapable of playing this role and it came out in more of a dark comedic style. And they went a little over board with the insanity part of it. Then when is friend gets his head hacked off, it's not a sad moment and it isn't sad for Dieter either. Anyways, I give up trying to figure this movie out. It felt as though the movie was on anti depressants.... no emotion whatsoever in reference to things that should have been really upsetting.

Released in late 2006-2007, "Rescue Dawn" is based on the true story of German-American Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) who was shot down in February, 1966, during a Vietnam bombing mission. He was held in a Laotian prison camp with several other prisoners, including Duane Martin and Gene DeBruin (Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies), before attempting to escape the following Summer.Directed by the famous German auteur, Werner Herzog, known for cult hits like 1972's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" and 1982's "Fitzcarraldo," "Rescue Dawn" has a somewhat artsy air compared to more conventional Vietnam War flicks, like 1986' "Platoon" and 1989's "Casualties of War," which isn't to say it's a better viewing experience than "Platoon," but it's about as good as the other one. In any case, it lacked the mega-budget of those blockbusters. It was shot in the jungles of Thailand in 44 days and things got ugly when the producer couldn't pay the crew for lack of funds.I'll be honest with you, during the first hour I was taken aback by what struck me as bad acting on Bale's part, like his smiling and comedic words at the absolute wrong time. It just didn't ring true, but then I saw that it was intentional, particularly after watching the "Making Of" featurettes on the DVD, which show that Dieter was a weirdly obsessed guy who absolutely refused to give up. It was his naïve-yet-unshakable optimism and iron-will that got him out of his jungle hell. The director would know more about the real Dengler since he made a documentary of his POW travails in 1997, "Little Dieter Needs to Fly." After watching clips from that film you'll realize that Bale's performance isn't far from the truth. Dieter always had this perpetual smile and weird sense of humor that either annoyed people or endeared them. So the performance is SUPPOSED to be eccentric. Besides, there's more than a hint of black comedy in the movie because the situation for American POWs was nigh surrealistically absurd.The movie has been severely criticized by members of the families of Gene DeBruin and Phisit Intharathat, the latter being the only other survivor of the group, a Thai. Herzog acknowledged that DeBruin acted heroically during his imprisonment, refusing to leave while some sick prisoners remained, but claimed to be unaware of this until after the film had been completed. He said that this angle would've probably been included in the story had he learned it earlier. However, the DeBruin family said that Herzog was not interested in speaking with them prior to the film being completed. For me personally, I didn't think Debruin was portrayed THAT badly. The way he's depicted is simply the result of his being incarcerated in a primitive jungle prison for two years BEFORE Dengler arrived. The latter was "only" there for five months before attempting to escape.A critic referred to "Rescue Dawn" as "One Flew Over the Bamboo Hut" on the grounds that it's essentially a war version of 1975's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." Like that movie, "Rescue Dawn" depicts a group of average men who were a little off BEFORE undergoing involuntary imprisonment. While Dieter (Bale) refuses to be locked down and is constantly trying to keep his mental skills sharp through humor and plotting, some of the other POWs are increasingly becoming lost in their own minds, which then sets up its own impenetrable walls. The fact that "Rescue Dawn" is based on a true story where the ending is known doesn't prevent it from being a quality jungle survival drama. Please take note because this isn't a war action film, although there's some of that; it's a survival drama. In any case, unlike "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" where the protagonist flew over the cuckoo's nest and disappeared forever, this movie offers hope. One flew over the bamboo hut, fell in for a while, but makes it out! The film runs 120 minutes.GRADE: B

So, Mister Christian Bale is on his way to the Gulf Of Tonkin during a 1965 war zone incident.His airplane is malfunctioning. He is told that he should abort. He decides he can land it and angle it so that he can survive somehow. He does that! But hes' in the jungle, and there are little bad Chinese people chasing him...and hes wet in a flight suit running ,running into palm fronds in the jungle. He gets so lucky. And then he gets caught. Put in a POW camp.His captor has swagger, sunglasses..lots of stuff, unbuttoned shirt and shi*. I shouldn't say that, but its one way to look at things...and so: He is so lucky, he gets put into this place with other native American and regular American fellas, BUT swears HES a German. and from there...the rest of the film becomes a sad event..like being in a group home or something.