Hart's War MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +3 1/2 Content: -2 1/2

Young Lieutenant Tommy Hart (Colin Farrell), sheltered son of a politician, is thrown into the brutal setting of a WWII POW camp in Germany. Unknown to him, the ranking American in camp, West Point graduate Colonel William McNamara (Bruce Willis), who chafes at being away from the battlefront, has men secretly digging an escape tunnel so they can go blow up a nearby munitions plant. McNamara finds a way to stage the escape while the Germans are distracted by a bogus court-martial of black Tuskegee Airman, Lt. Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), falsely accused of murdering Sergeant Vic Bedford (Cole Hauser), a vocally racist POW. To keep the flyer from being executed, law student Hart, who represents Scott in the trial, proclaims himself to be guilty. When the manipulative German camp commandant, Colonel Werner Visser (Marcel Iures), discovers the tunnel, he orders all Americans who participated in the fake trial executed. Colonel McNamara, who escapes must weigh the lives of Hart and all his men against destroying the plat. This exciting, tense action-drama should draw fans of war films, but could suffer by comparisons to classics such as THE GREAT ESCAPE and STALAG 17.

Examples of heroism are depicted in the actions of all three leads. At war with himself and his privileged upbringing, as well as with the Germans, Hart matures from a mindset of self-preservation before his capture, to willingness to sacrifice his own life to save another. Colonel McNamara also changes from a cold, calculating strategist ready to sacrifice men for what he perceives as a greater good in destroying the munitions plant to a real leader willing to die for his men. And Scott not only accepts the racially charged accusations but also rejects an opportunity to escape through the tunnel before his trial ends, which would ruin the planned mission. Although the movie features dramatically authentic visuals, the fictional story suffers with an air of unreal reactions, an odor of political correctness, and displays of personal introspection that seem in some ways foreign to the time

Preview Reviewer: Ed Crumley
Distributor: MGM, 2500 Broadway St., Santa Monica, CA 90404-3061