2006 film by Werner Herzog
Rescue Dawn is a 2006 epic war drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog, based on the true story of Dieter Dengler (played by Christian Bale), a German-American pilot who was shot down and captured by villagers sympathetic to the Pathet Lao during an American military campaign in the Vietnam War. Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, and Toby Huss have prominent supporting roles in the film.
In 1997, Herzog made a documentary film about Dengler titled "Little Dieter Needs to Fly". "Rescue Dawn", which focuses on Dengler's experiences as a prisoner of war, began shooting in Thailand in August 2005. It received critical acclaim, but was a box office failure.
Plot.
In February 1966, while on a combat mission, Lieutenant Dieter Dengler, a German-born U.S. Navy pilot in squadron VA-145, flying from the carrier USS "Ranger", is shot down in his Douglas A-1 Skyraider over Laos. He survives the crash, only to be captured by the Pathet Lao. Dengler is offered leniency by the province governor if he will sign a document condemning America, but he refuses, so he is tortured and taken to a prisoner of war camp. There, he meets his fellow prisoners, some of whom have been captives for years: American pilots Gene DeBruin and Duane W. Martin, Hong Kong Chinese radio operator Y.C. To, Thai Air America freight employee Phisit Intharathat, and Procet.
Dengler immediately plans to escape, but receives only grudging support from the other prisoners. All are suffering from malnutrition, unhygienic conditions, and abuse by the guards. After several months, the food supply worsens further, and the prisoners learn that the starving guards are planning to kill them and return to their homes, so they agree to put Dieter's long-prepared plan into action. This involves escaping through a weakened section of the perimeter fence, dividing into two groups, circling the perimeter fence in opposite directions, converging on the guard hut during the lunch hour to overwhelm the guards, and contacting the American forces for rescue.
Due to one party of prisoners disobeying Dengler's orders, the escape does not go according to plan, and nearly all the guards end up being shot. With insufficient equipment and supplies, the prisoners disperse in the jungle. Dengler and Martin form one group, while Gene and To leave together to an uncertain fate.
Dengler and Martin head towards the Mekong River with a plan to cross over into Thailand by fashioning a crude raft, but they run afoul of rapids and a waterfall. Martin gets progressively weaker as they wander through the jungle on foot, and, after Dengler fails to signal an American helicopter by starting a fire, he and Martin stumble into a small village, where a mob of angry villagers decapitate Martin. Dengler escapes and flees back into the jungle, hiding from the pursuing villagers. A few days later, he is finally rescued by an American helicopter and taken to a hospital in a U.S. compound, but kept isolated, as his mission was classified. Eventually, his squadron members are allowed to visit, and they arrange his escape back to his ship, where the whole crew welcomes him as a hero.
Cast.
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Production.
Background and development.
"Rescue Dawn" is based on the true story of Dieter Dengler, a charismatic pilot who was shot down in Laos while on a covert attack mission for the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. A few months after being captured in 1966, Dengler and other POWs who were being held captive targeted July 4 for their mass escape. The prisoners had overheard the guards in mid-June planning to kill all of them and return to their villages because a drought had caused a severe shortage of food and water. The POWs decided they could not wait any longer to make their escape.
Dengler and fellow POW Duane W. Martin made their eventual run from their prisoner camp into dense jungle. Martin was killed by an enraged Laotian villager, but Dengler was able to continue on. Two rescue helicopters were scrambled to rescue Dengler, dropping a cable down to the human figure they spotted below. They winched him on board, but, fearful that he could be a Viet Cong suicide bomber, the pararescue crewman, A1C Michael Leonard from Lawler, Iowa, pinned Dengler to the helicopter floor and searched him. Dengler told Leonard that he was a Navy pilot who had been shot down and captured and recently escaped.
Herzog, fascinated by the cruelties of man and nature, became interested in Dengler's story and made the documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" in 1997. When he chose to revisit the story in a cinematic theatrical version, he cast Christian Bale as Dengler. Compared to "Little Dieter Needs to Fly", "Rescue Dawn" understates the suffering of the prisoners, including omitting some of the worst torture experienced by Dengler, as the film is rated PG-13.
Filming.
Principal photography took place over 44 days in Thailand. In preparation for their roles, the actors playing the prisoners spent several months losing weight. Since weight gain is accomplished more quickly than weight loss, the film was shot in reverse, with Bale fully regaining his weight over the course of the shoot. The film includes the first major use of digital visual effects in Herzog's career, as the shots of Dengler's flight were created digitally, though the crash is live action.
Music and soundtrack.
The original motion picture soundtrack for "Rescue Dawn" was released by Milan Records on June 26, 2007. It features classical music, with considerable use of the cello and piano. The film's score was written by German composer Klaus Badelt, who had previously worked with Herzog on the 2001 film "Invincible". Original songs written by musical artists Ernst Reijseger, Patty Hill, Craig Eastman, and Jack Shaindlin, among others, were also used in the film. Peter Austin edited the music.
Track listing:
Historical accuracy.
In real life, Dengler spoke English with a heavy German accent, which was reduced in Bale's portrayal "to almost zero".
The film depicts six total prisoners in Dengler's camp, while in real life there were seven. Herzog said he found the writing to be difficult with seven characters, and six was a more manageable number.
Jerry DeBruin, brother of Gene DeBruin, created a website critical of Herzog and the film on which he claimed that several characters and events in the film are falsely portrayed. On the same website, Phisit Intharathat, the only survivor of Dengler's group of prisoners other than Dengler, also stated that the film contains inaccuracies. The site claims that during his imprisonment, DeBruin taught his cellmates English, shared his food, and even returned after escaping to help an injured cellmate. In the film, Dengler formulates the entire escape plan, along with uncuffing the prisoners' handcuffs with a nail. According to Jerry DeBruin, the prisoners waited for two weeks before telling him of the plan, which had been devised before his arrival.
Herzog acknowledged that DeBruin acted heroically during his imprisonment, refusing to leave while some sick prisoners remained, and probably would have written the character differently, but he was unaware of this information until after the film had been completed. Intharathat and Jerry DeBruin stated that they made multiple attempts to meet with Herzog to ensure the film's accuracy, but without success.
Release.
"Rescue Dawn" was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer theatrically in the United States, and by Pathé Distribution, Hopscotch Films, and Central Film GmbH in foreign markets. It was originally scheduled to be released in the U.S. by MGM in December 2006, but was held back until 2007, with a limited release in New York City, Toronto, and Los Angeles on July 4, and a wide release on July 27.
Home media.
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 20, 2007. According to the website The Numbers, it has earned an estimated $25,361,799 from DVD sales in the United States.
Reception.
Box office.
During its 17-week theatrical run, the film grossed $5,490,423 in the U.S. and Canada and $1,686,720 in other territories, for a total theatrical gross of $7,177,143. It ranked 178th at the 2007 box office. The film was considered a financial failure due to its $10 million budget, but was able to recoup its losses from DVD rentals and sales.
Opening in six locations in the United States on July 4, 2007, the film grossed $110,326 its opening weekend. After expanding to 500 theaters on July 24, it earned $1,650,282, enough to finish in a distant 11th place at the weekend box office. The film's revenue dropped by 66% its second week in wide release, earning $560,903 and falling to 18th place.
Critical response.
Preceding its theatrical run, "Rescue Dawn" received generally positive critical reviews. On the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 162 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Director Werner Herzog has once again made a compelling tale of man versus nature, and Christian Bale completely immerses himself in the role of fighter pilot (and prisoner of war) Dieter Dengler." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100 based on reviews from 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Kirk Honeycutt, writing in "The Hollywood Reporter", said actor Bale's performance was "most complex and compelling". He praised Herzog for his use of "lush jungle locations in Thailand, eloquent camera work and an unobtrusive but powerful music score", which brought to life the "story of a man in the wilderness battling the elements on his own terms".
Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" called "Rescue Dawn" "perhaps the most believable [movie] that Herzog has made", while exclaiming: "There is nothing in it we cannot, or do not, believe. I was almost prepared to compare it to the classic storytelling of John Huston when I realized it had crucial Herzogian differences".
In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Walter Addiego wrote that the film was "an old-fashioned prisoner-of-war movie that becomes much more because of writer-director Werner Herzog's admiration for the remarkable true story of its protagonist, Dieter Dengler". He thought the director "found an actor capable of conveying the Herzog-ian hero—wounded, a holy fool, a crackpot, a dreamer of outsized dreams—in everyone."
Scott Bowles of "USA Today" said the film was "cold and unforgiving and chilling to behold". He declared: "War stories don't get much more harrowing or detached than "Rescue Dawn", and that's both blessing and curse for the Werner Herzog film."
The film was not without its detractors, however. Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail", felt that "The strangely hybrid result, half Herzog and half Hollywood, plays like its own battleground. Sometimes, the tension is fascinatingly productive; other times, all we get is the worst of both worlds". Equally unimpressed was Paula Nechak of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer", who called "Rescue Dawn" "a noble effort that can't quite make itself unique in a saturated genre", adding that Herzog "already has covered much of the tropical terrain of his long-delayed action film in his 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs To Fly"". Alternatively, J. Hoberman of "The Village Voice", said the film "rivals "Apocalypto" as a jungle marathon, has all this and more". He also noted that "Bale even looks authentically starved (as in "The Machinist"). But seeing Dengler's adventure staged hardly seems more real than hearing his account—although, as conventionally framed and lit as it is, "Rescue Dawn" is the closest thing to a 'real' movie that Herzog has ever made."
Writing for "The New York Times", Matt Zoller Seitz said the "story’s basis in fact doesn’t inoculate it against charges of predictability. Klaus Badelt’s score can be intrusively emphatic. And the triumphant ending—in which Dengler is welcomed back to his carrier with applause and speeches—is disappointingly conventional". Overall though, he did commend the film, stating, "'Rescue Dawn' is a marvel: a satisfying genre picture that challenges the viewer’s expectations".
James Berardinelli, writing for "ReelViews", called "Rescue Dawn" "a solid effort from Herzog that fans of the genre should actively seek out" and noted that "Herzog understood when he made "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" that the ex-pilot's story would make an excellent feature. It's surprising it has taken him so long to make that movie." Berardinelli also commented that "Christian Bale continues to amaze with his ability and range. He may be the most versatile under-40 performer today. No role seems to be beyond him, and he has worked with some of the