Rescue Dawn

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Dieter Dengler……………………….Christian Bale
Steve Zahn………………..………….Duane
Jeremy Davies………………………..Gene
Toby Huss…………………………....Spook
Teerawat ‘Ka Ge’ Mulvilai ………….Little Hitler

Written and Directed by Werner Herzog

Rated PG-13
Runtime: 2 hrs. 6 min.


Few of us know what true survival is. We talk about surviving different tribulations in our lives, but it’s hyperbole. Our life may have changed drastically, but we were never in any danger of losing our lives. I had this thought when I was watching Rescue Dawn. It is about men who know nothing but survival.

The movie is based on the true story of Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale). For reasons better left to Christian Bale’s monologue to detail, Dieter came to the United States from Germany to fly. We first meet him in the bowels of an aircraft carrier being briefed on a top secret mission to bomb targets in Laos before the Vietnam War has begun.

I want to take a moment to talk about Christian Bale’s performance. In many movies, we learn who a character is throughout the movie. Not so here. In these opening scenes, Bale makes Dieter charming, cocky, and forthright in a way so as to be slightly awkward. These are traits that are consistent throughout the movie. We therefore know him immediately and so we join him on this journey. It is Bale’s best performance that I have seen.

Dieter is shot down during the mission and gets captured by the Viet Cong and eventually arrives at a camp where he joins 5 men who have already been imprisoned for two years. Immediately, his only thought is escape, and his enthusiasm eventually inspires the other men to try.

The relationships that these men develop in the camp are the heart of the movie. They become a surrogate family: they bicker, they support each other, they laugh. It was the laughter that amazed me. Not that it happened. I believe you would have to laugh. It was that the movie was able to make the laughter so genuine. Usually, the audience laughs at characters onscreen. Here, it is the characters who laugh and we are allowed to laugh with them.

I’ve already mentioned Christian Bale, but Steve Zahn also gives a memorable performance as another fighter pilot, Duane. What I remember are Steve Zahn’s eyes. Duane’s desire to be as strong as Dieter is all right there as is the toll the camp has taken on him. It is an incredibly vulnerable performance.

It is after the escape that the jungle itself becomes a character in the movie. I had heard a lot about the men fighting their way through the underbrush, but I wondered how bad it could be. It is one of the most memorable images of the movie. It is a testament not only to Herzog’s devotion to filming on location, but also to the devotion of the actors.

In another director’s hands, this could have been an oppressive movie with graphic torture scenes and amped up music and the prisoners screaming at each other. But it is not. It is gentle, even subdued. Shocking things happen, but they are not emphasized. Herzog trusts this story and his actors, and in the end, us.