Rescue Dawn a Soaring Tribute to Courage

Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) just wanted to fly. A German émigré who saw his Black Forest home bombed by American forces during World War II, he’s now a member of the United States military proudly serving the adopted country that gave him the opportunity to soar amongst the eagles. He is a giddy man, loved by both his fellow pilots and his superior officers, the young man’s courage and tenacity those around him can only try and emulate.

Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) fights for survival in MGM's Rescue Dawn

These traits are put to the test when, on his very first mission, Dieter is shot down deep inside the Laotian jungle and taken prisoner by the Viet Cong. With no help coming and only a small group of fellow detainees, including Americans Duane (Steve Zahn) and Eugene (Jeremy Davies), to aid him, the pilot plots a daring escape to freedom not once ever giving up the hope he will live to fly amongst the clouds again.

Writer and director Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man) first examined Dengler’s story with the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. Now, ten years later (and six since the pilot’s tragic death from Lou Gehrig’s disease), the filmmaker returns to the story and delivers an epic narrative feature about survival that’s as emotionally rapturous as it is kinetically exciting.

Like so many of Herzog’s previous works (Fitzcaraldo and Aguirre, The Wrath of God being just two examples), Rescue Dawn is another viscerally intoxicating descent into the jungle. Man’s relationship with nature has always fascinated the auteur, this film no exception, and as such the moral and ethical complexities of the Vietnam warfare are nowhere to be found. This picture isn’t concerned about who was right, who was wrong or what the complex (and murky) distinctions between the two were.

Instead it is only concerned with showing a man fearlessly confident in his almost obscene will to survive, fascinated by the internal mechanism which allowed him to become the only American POW to escape from a Vietnamese prison camp. Those looking for more than that (especially if they’re hoping Herzog will somehow relate it all back to the current conflict in Iraq) will undoubtedly be disappointed. The film pointedly refuses to take a point of view, forcing the viewer to make up their own mind about the moral quagmire depicted only fleetingly within the picture’s peripheral constructs.

And that’s just fine with me. I like filmmakers as fiercely independent as this one, directors who refuse to paint easy portraits for their audiences and make them use their brains to decipher the pluses and minuses of what is going on. Life isn’t always obvious, and having to think for yourself is part of what makes us human, and the fact Herzog recognizes and embraces that is a thing truly to cherish.

That said, it would be nice if he didn’t at the same time paint in such wildly obvious generalizations. Both Duane and Eugene (while superbly played by Zahn and Davies) are caricatures not characters, their personas as obvious and cliché as any found in a Chuck Norris Missing in Action adventure. The Viet Cong captors don’t fare much better, and while they’re not as one dimensional and cartoonish as they were in, say, Rambo First Blood Part II they’re just close they almost border on being insulting.

Yet these are minor problems. Bale continues to impress as maybe the finest actor of his generation, Herzog pushing him to many of the same limits I could imagine him legendarily doing to his brilliant (and volatile) former muse Klaus Kinski. The current Batman dives into this role completely, submerging himself as deeply here as he did in his bravura turn a few years ago in The Machinist.

This time, however, gone is the brooding self-loathing of that performance and replacing it is an unwavering jovial charm and a magnetic certainty of success. His Dieter Dengler, even when the jungle is screaming at him to believe otherwise, never gives up hope or ever gives in to its seemingly inescapable confines, the man’s success so awe-inspiring and magnificent my heart was so fully inflamed I almost thought it would split in two from the strain.

It is more then enough to make me love the movie. Add in Klaus Badelt’s (Poseidon) superlative score and Peter Zeitlinger’s (Invincible) marvelous cinematography and all the pieces are in place for a singular slice of bravura entertainment. Herzog, making what is arguably his most mainstream motion picture ever, really outdoes himself at times here, Rescue Dawn an unforgettable triumph and a towering tribute to a man who refused to fail.

Film Rating:  êêê1/2  (out of 4)