The raid itself, when it comes, is at night, and would be hard for us to follow except that it follows so precisely the plans that were earlier outlined. Juan Pajota ( Cesar Montano), a forcible local actor who steps into the Hollywood cast and adds to its authenticity and sense of mission.Ī brilliant strategic idea is to have a single American plane make several passes over the camp, lifting the eyes of the Japanese to the skies as rescuers were creeping toward them. The film is unique in giving full credit to the Filipino fighters who joined the Rangers and made the local logistics possible by enlisting the secret help of local farmers and villagers (their ox carts were employed to carry prisoners too weak to walk). Still, it is the idea of Margaret that sustains Gibson, whose strength is being drained by malaria. She and Gibson were once lovers (in what must be a fictional invention), but have not seen each other for years. She works in the Manila underground, obtaining drugs on the black market, which are smuggled in to the camp. Gibson ( Joseph Fiennes), leader of the POWs, and a brave American nurse, also from real life, named Margaret Utinsky ( Connie Nielsen). In parallel stories, we meet the fictional Maj. Bob Prince ( James Franco), who plans the raid. In both this raid and a larger, more famous one at the nearby Los Banos camp, the challenge was to rescue the POWs before the Japanese felt the enemy was close enough to trigger the deaths of their prisoners.Ĭommanding the Rangers are the real-life war heroes Lt. Historical narration and footage provide the con As the Japanese retreated, they killed their prisoners, and Americans in one camp were burned alive. Perhaps that is close to the truth, but they have never been tested under fire their first assignment involves penetrating Japanese-controlled territory, creeping in daylight across an open field toward the POW camp, hiding in a ditch until night, and then depending on surprise to rescue the prisoners, most of them starving, many of them sick, all of them survivors of the Bataan Death March. Army," their commander ( Benjamin Bratt) tells the 6th Army Ranger Battalion. "You are the best-trained troops in the U. Like the jazzier but equally realistic " Black Hawk Down," it shows a situation that has moved beyond policy and strategy and amounts to soldiers in the field, hoping to hell they get home alive. Like soldiers on a march, it puts one step in front of another, instead of flying apart into a blizzard of quick cuts and special effects. The raid is outlined for the troops (and for the audience), so that, knowing what the rescuers want to do, we understand how they're trying to do it. It has been made with the confidence that the story itself is the point, not the flashy graphics. "The Great Raid" has the look and feel of a good war movie you might see on cable late one night, perhaps starring Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan or Lee Marvin.
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