The Great Raid (2005)

A lot of fun.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This Movie Should be Given Legendary Status! I am a big history buff and I have read about the Cabanatuan Japanese POW camp rescue prior to watching this. It will not fail to give you hope, inspire, encourage, and even entertain you.This movie did everything right. The story, the casting, acting, character development, impressive cinematography, the sound, the setting etc. I could go on about how great this movie is and the details of it. However, I want you to experience it! This movie has probably become one of my favorites. (A rare occurrence).Granted, if you're looking for an action packed shoot' em up movie, this might not be your first choice. But regardless of what you are looking for in a movie, this one will not fail to deliver!

This is just another propaganda movie for the world. Yankees are brave, righteous, have honor, and so on... So they are the good guys. On the other hand, Japanese are evil scumbags who are serving Lucifer. Not as big propaganda as Schindler's List which lies to you with every of it's pixels but this is a propaganda movie too. Just ironic to see these propaganda movies. Yankees and British killed more then 8 million civilians with their terror bombings. They just bombed civilian districts to the ground. Just to kill enemy civilians in Europe and Japan. They made this genocide heartlessly. Isn't that a propaganda to show these guy as heroes? They dropped two nuclear bombs into two well populated Japanese cities. How can they be really heroes? Also, they gathered all Asians into concentration camps in the US and after that they showing us German and Japanese C.Camps? If this isn't propaganda then what propaganda is? Just an awful propaganda movie. Yankee idiots will like it, I think.

In the notorious POW camp at Cabanatuan in occupied Philippines, the Japanese hold about 500 American prisoners who had survived the Bataan Death March. The Japanese are getting orders to liquidate the prisoners. Over the course of 5 days starting at Jan 27, 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Mucci and Captain Prince (James Franco) lead the 6th Ranger Battalion along with the Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas to liberate the prison camp some 30 miles behind enemy lines. The movie switches back and forth between the rescue, people like Margaret Utinsky (Connie Nielsen) who is a nurse in occupied Manila, and the prison camp where men led by Major Gibson (Joseph Fiennes) suffer under Japanese brutality.It's an old fashion traditional war movie. It does stray into melodrama from time to time. It's also scattered among the various character sideplots. The scale of production is just below epic. There are a lot of good actors at work. However that does make me question why Benjamin Bratt is cast as the soldier in charge of the rescue. That seems to be the more important role and a more established actor like Fiennes should be doing it. This would work better if the movie picks between a prison movie or a rescue movie and put Fiennes in the lead of either. The final rescue action is done well and the movie is generally good but not great.

The Great Raid is a World War II film about the Raid at Cabanatuan that located in the Philippines.It was adapted from William Breuer's book of the same name.It stars Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes, James Franco, Connie Nielsen, Motoki Kobayashi and Filipino actor,Cesar Montano. It tells the story of the liberation of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp by the US Military with the help of Filipino guerrillas.It is directed by John Dahl.During the waning days of World War II,General Douglas MacArthur chose to make good on a pledge that he made in 1942 that he would return to the Philippines after he and his troops were forced to retreat. However, MacArthur's determination was more than a matter of pride. Over 500 American soldiers were being held in Cabanatuan, a notoriously brutal prisoner of war camp in the Philippines operated by the Japanese army, and MacArthur wanted to see to it that they made it home. MacArthur chose Lt. Col. Henry Mucci to lead the Sixth Ranger Battalion on a mission 30 miles behind enemy lines to infiltrate Cabanatuan and liberate the American prisoners. With the help of Capt. Prince, Mucci leads his men on a life-or-death raid against forces known for their savagery with the help of Filipino guerrillas.The conclusion of the movie,which was the raid of the prison camp,was well-done by the filmmakers.Unfortunately,the film ran too long due to many subplots such as a love story before the raid.Had the film just focused on what it was suppose to be,it could have been shorter and probably would have become a brilliant film.The performances of the cast were worthy of merit especially Filipino actor,Cesar Montano in his first Hollywood film.In summary,The Great Raid would have become a great film had it focused on the raid itself.