Rescue Dawn: DVD

This film tell the story of Dieter Dengler, a German born American, who on his first sortie as a Naval pilot in the early beginnings of Vietnam is shot down and taken hostage in Laos. Dengler, through his ever present disarming optimism and knack for tool making, convinces the other captives, who were all part of the CIA Air America program and in captivity for years, to break out. Tensions are high and in the end this true story can only be believed if we believe Dengler, played by Christan Bale (Batman Begins, American Pyscho).

Once they escape, Dengler and another hostage Duane Martin become separated from the others and work their way back towards civilization. The remaining time of the movie is the trials these two face in that self rescue.

Bales does an outstanding job once again of losing himself in character. There are few movies he has done where you see an A list actor on the screen. I think of Val Kilmer (a fellow Batman) who made a career completely losing himself in character, though did so to such a point that he was forgettable, which ultimately is unfortunate.

Bale is accompanied by Steve Zahn (Sahara, You've Got Mail) who plays Duane Martin. There is an easy friendship between Bale and Zahn as there was been the real Dengler and Martin. You can see, that beyond the acting, these two actors bonded on set in a real way.

The gem of the DVD release is the making of documentary. In fact my wife, who doesn't like Special Features in the least, remarked that this doc was the best she'd ever watched. Werner Herzog, the director, went to great pains and considerable physical effort on his own part to create a realistic world for the movie to move in. There is almost no CGI and no stage work. The vast bulk of this movie is filmed in the triple canopy jungles of south-east Asia with the main characters and the director in direct line of danger, filming in wild rivers and immovable jungle.


A final note. This is a slow movie, suitable perhaps for theater viewing but the long pans can be a bore on the small screen. If your able to do so, speed up your player to cut some time. Also there are some conversations that are difficult to follow and I personally use the subtitles on most DVD's at home so I don't have to rewind due to missing valuable plot info. In this case the subtitles will help you understand the Asian dialects a bit better.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Some of the local guys were bad mouthing this movie; asking why Helen Mirren or Jon Voight were even in it.

I completely disagree. I loved it. Thank god most of you did too, taking #1 at the box office.

The movie begins with the requisite historical narrative to the plot, in this case the assassination of President Lincoln and how the Gates family and the hero, Benjamen Gates played by Nick Cage, fits into that. Then we are treated the a update of the three main characters rounded out by Diane Kruger as Abigail Chase and Justin Bartha as Riley Poole. As already mentioned there is the return of Voight and also Harvey Keitel as FBI man Sadusky. New characters include Mirren as Voights ex-wife and Ed Harris as Mitch Wilkinson, the protagonist.

When confronted by a man (Harris) who tells the Gates family that their relative was the mastermind behind the assassination of President Lincoln, an epic blockbuster unfolds that takes the characters to Paris, London, the east coast of America and eventually Mt. Rushmore in order to clear the family name once again.

Instead of just stealing documents like the US Constitution in the first movie, Ben Gates hatches a plot to kidnap the President of the United States played quite well by Bruce Greenwood. And knowing this tidbit in know way detracts from the joy and simplicity Ben Gates uses to do it.

The two characters who get the greatest benefit from the sequel are Riley Poole (Bartha) and Patrick Gates (Voight). Each had tremendously funny lines and sub plots. Voight especially had a mirth and twinkle in his face that was absent in the first film, he gets to explore his characters past with the addition of Helen Mirren as his ex-wife. Their relationship goes through some predictable movements in the arc of the story but only because Mirren is a true gem on the screen picking up precisely on why Voights character was so arbitrary in the first film to his son's exploits.

The villian this time around played by Harris is not as strong as Sean Bean in the first. In the original I actually appreciated that the villain and hero were friends first and then enemies after their different courses of action leading to the same goal became divergent. In this episode Harris is immediately cast as the bad guy and by the end his motives while wrong are redeeming.

I hope they continue to make as many sequels to this story as possible. There is such an endless number of historical accuracies that they could tackle. Eventually the story could move on to the next generation of the Gate Family with Nick Cage becoming the father figure, if that plot line moved further along with his girlfriend Abigail.

Smarter than Me

There has been a lot of movies on the big screen the last couple months.

Today though was a first. Mo saw a commercial for a movie we haven't rented in months, The Adventures of SharkBoy and LavaGirl. I don't think its a great movie but it's not my opinion that counts. So Mo and I drove down to the video store to get it.

As we drove down, I asked if he was excited about seeing LavaGirl and SharkBoy. He added that he was also going to see 'Max'.

Max? I don't forget movie characters easily but didn't remember a 'Max'. Turns out that Max is actually the main character and the other two are his sidekicks.

Go figure my four and half year old knows more about his movies now than Mo Daddy. Guess I need to step it up.