Hart's War

There's nothing better than being positively surprised by a movie. That's exactly what happens to us after watching "Hart's War". At first sight, it's nothing but one war movie full of shots, explosion and deaths. But once the first minutes go on we seen how we misjudged the film. What would be an empty movie, becomes a drama with interesting and mysterious happenings. "Hart's War" proves Bruce Willis is much more than just an action-movie-actor. His performance here is good and he is certainly going towards the best moments of his career. I must also say the plot is great! The surprise in the end is remarkable! My Rate 8/10

HART'S WAR (2002) ** Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Cole Hauser, Marcel Iures, Linus Roache. "A Few Good Men" meets "Hogan's Heroes" could have been the pitch for this thoroughly unabsorbing WWII drama set in a German POW camp with Willis as the commanding officer of the allied prisoners and Farrell as a green lieutenant who join forces for a trial involving a murder motivated by racism. Pacing drags and the credibility stretches beyond the limits of reason. (Dir: Gregory Hoblit)

This is not a realistic or believable movie at all. I could almost reference every character in this movie with a corresponding character in the TV series "Hogan's Heroes" I was half expecting one of the German POW camp guards to yell "I SEE NOTHING"!! The only difference between this movie and "Hogan's Heroes" is that this movie tries to show all the secret goings-on under the noses of the POW guards as being believable! This was of course the main device used by the TV series to get laughs back in the 1960's, and this movie shows that this type of story line is still able to get laughs... well, from me anyway! If you are a fan of old school war movies and detective style murder mysteries then you might get more out of this movie than I did, but even if you are, it will be hard work for you!

The plot in this film is extraordinary. A court martial held within a German Prisoner of War Camp during World War 11 shall possibly allow for sabotage and eventual escape. Prejudice was certainly alive and well within the armed forces during the conflict. We see how imprisoned minority officers couldn't stay with their own and the Germans viewed this with pleasure, citing the hypocrisy of the Americans- advocating liberty while pursuing prejudice. When one of the black men is killed by a racist white soldier, mayhem breaks out and when the latter is murdered, it is assumed that the black surviving soldier carried out the dastardly deed. A trial takes place with the Germans looking on with glee. Bruce Willis is terrific here as the head of the group ultimately paying the price and he is equally matched by Colin Farrell, a soldier, who serves as the attorney for the defendant despite the fact that he hasn't received his law degree as yet.

disappointing - read the book, it's a better story. Why change the basic story for a movie? Blah! Shallow and trite. They should have stayed with the story from the book.

Hart's Bore, as I oh-so-wittily refer to this piece of Hollywood trash is worth seeing exactly one time. I can't see any reason for me to go back and watch it again. The plot tempo and the movement of the story weren't so bad, it is just that this movie was frustrating to watch. Colin Farrell was much better in Tigerland and I couldn't help thinking about Tigerland and its plot while I was watching this dud, perhaps wishing that the films would magically switch places. And like someone else has mentioned, this movie might find you actually rooting for the Nazis, who aren't villified very well.

HART'S WAR is Bruce Willis' only war instalment and Colin Farrell does another fine performance. HART'S WAR is a sort of near politic war movie that does a sort of flick but in the same time it isn't that interesting or dramatic that what it seems the makers thinks it is. Thomas Hart gets kidnapped by nazis and put into a prisoncamp. Here things happens and the main story sort of is that a black pilot gets killed and Hart starts out as a lawyer and wants to find out who the murderer is... HART'S WAR is also fine as a movie but is is way to ordinary and stupid. Fine but...well, nothing more! STARS: 2/5

I didn´t have any big expectations before renting the DVD but this movie was amazing and entertaining! The script is very clever directed. There´s not much boum-boum but a mix of war, intrigue and suspense. I liked especially the fact that in the story a martial court takes place and also the strong performance of Colin Farrel as advocate/soldier was top. The escape scene was similar to the one in "THE GREAT ESCAPE". The end was a big surprise for me and I didn´t really expect that justice came true. Finally I want to congratulate MGM for another good production. It´s a pity that this film hasn´t yet been shown in our theatres. Believe me it´s a must see thriller and I will add this one to my DVD best of collection. I also highly recommend "RULES OF ENGAGEMENT". I gave 8/10.

Good Film, good acting, even the story was interesting. I liked that it had its turn in using clichees and not proving them right all the time. As a european it's strange to see movies nowadays that end like this. The last Castle and Windtalkers just ended the same way - and being born after WWII the last 60 seconds of all these movies remind me of war propaganda - are these commercials for volounteering for Irak?

You can start by telling this is the kind of movie that take a leap with historical facts and it can be the case, but with all respect, almost all Hollywoodmovies about the Second World War are like that. I mean it can't be fun for any soldier who is daily faced with death and certainly not for those who are in a workcamp run by nazis. But good that's not my point, if you wanna have historical facts that are right then you have to read encyclopedias or so. Thing id that "Hart's war" brings back one of my fave genres and that's warmovies! Okay movies like that might have been made with tons during the 50's and the 60's but these days they are rare and that's the biggest merit of the film plus a brilliant (as always) performance from the most underrated actor ever : Bruce Willis...