Rescue Dawn

I posted a while back about German director Werner Herzog. He has a new film coming out, and it may be his big breakthrough in the U.S. Here is what Slate magazine said about it.

Rescue Dawn (MGM). Iconoclastic German documentarian Werner Herzog's new movie is a big-studio POW escape adventure starring Christian Bale. The picture opened on the Fourth of July in Los Angeles, New York, and … Camp Anaconda, Iraq. What's that about? Critics are quick to note that Herzog made a documentary feature about Rescue Dawn's real-life protagonist back in 1997, and that the emotional terrain of this new film is a snug fit with the director's oeuvre. The New York Observer explains: "[W]hile it is an exceptionally well-made genre film, polished enough to make a killing in both art houses and shopping-mall multiplexes, it honors the classic Herzog theme of idealistic man versus predatory Mother Nature in a battle to achieve impossible goals." And most reviewers think it succeeds on both registers. The Los Angeles Times' Carina Chocano writes, "Aside from a riveting adventure story that Herzog tells in all of its terrifying, stripped-down simplicity, 'Rescue Dawn' is a fascinating study of human particularity." " 'Rescue Dawn' is likely to be a surprise summer hit," predicts Salon. "[T]his marvelously photographed, tautly constructed big-screen spectacle puts you through the emotional wringer and hauls you out the other side."

Watch the trailer here: