Review of Hart's War (2002) by Emma M — 23 Apr 2006

It's a war film. It has Bruce Willis in it, a man who can be fantastic on screen but has never been accused of being a great actor. I wasn't expecting much. However I was very surprised at how good this film was.

The lots of the now infamous Prague studios double exceptionally well for a POW camp towards the end of the 2nd world war, where our eponymous hero, an aspiring lawyer who has never seen action, due to daddy?s string pulling, ends up. The POWs' commanding officer is Col. Macnamara (Bruce Willis) who begins to use Lt. Hart (Colin Farrell) as a pawn in his plots.

This is another of those twist-turny rollercoaster plots, although it does end up feeling like a 2nd rate Scottish seaside town?s travelling carnival rollercoaster rather than Disneyland, as the heart pounding 'Oh so that's..' moments are actually irrelevant to the denouement, which left me feeling slightly cheated- all those twists and turns and the villain was exactly who you though it was.

It's not a Bruce Willis? film, it's Colin Farrell's film, Bruce is just a supporting cast, probably to get finance and Colin Farrell is excellent as the naive officer who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a conspiracy far larger than him. The rest of the cast is exemplary as well, with one exception. Mr Willis has made some fine films and I'm not saying he's bad here but he is miscast. I think the reason that I did feel cheated by the twists is that the audience are not supposed to see whodunit as quickly as they do; there is one line where Hart says 'Oh my God, it was you..' where I was thinking 'well D'oh, I saw that an hour ago' and as far as I can see the main reason for this disparity between what the audience is supposed to think and what they actually think, is the Bruce Willis miscast- he just can't play, 4th generation, West Point however good he is.

The miscasting of Bruce Willis aside Hart's War is an excellent film, which is brave enough to deal with some of the darke r issues involved in the world wars; not all the Allied prisoners are good guys and not all the German guards are bad guys. It carefully tackles the thorny topic of racism in the army, of wars within wars, where you think you're fighting one enemy when it's actually your own side you're battling, of knowing who the enemy is, if indeed there is one and what becomes of honour when all must make compromises in order to survive.