German director Werner Herzog's latest feature film, Rescue Dawn, stars Hollywood star Christian Bale. It's based on the director's 1997 acclaimed documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly.
Bale plays Dieter, a US Navy pilot who is shot down over Laos in 1966 during a secret bombing mission. He is captured by a local militia sympathetic to the Viet Cong and taken to a prison camp where he is tortured.
There he meets six prisoners including Duane (Steve Zahn), another American Air Force officer. Together the seven prisoners manage to escape from the camp but eventually go their separate ways in the jungle.
Don't expect a standard prison-break movie rife with action and explosions. Herzog the anthropologic filmmaker is more interested in the jungle than machine guns, which are eventually ditched by Dieter and Duane as they find they hinder their survival efforts.
It is the jungle, not the Viet Cong, that is the prisoners' main enemy. This fits Herzog's passion for portraying heroes with an iron will struggling against extreme conditions.
The scene where Dieter gleefully munches earthworms is both unnerving and triumphant.
