Rescue Dawn

In Werner Herzog's survival thriller Rescue Dawn, a lean Christian Bale plays German-born US fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, shot down and captured in the jungles of Laos during the Vietnam War. Invited by his captors to denounce America, he refuses the easy way out and from then on has to rely on ever-increasing powers of resourcefulness to survive along with the other prisoners (Zahn & Davies) kept in the same dilapidated bamboo huts. Herzog's film has echoes of two of his previous classics, Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, Wrath of God in pitting a man fighting against elements beyond his control in the jungle, and he directs tightly, abetted by Bale's livewire performance as Dengler in a film that is pleasingly not wholly predictable. There's also a memorably haunting scene at the beginning, where US bombs drop grotesquely upon a lush countryside and you can't help but be pained, knowing the devastation they're causing. Herzog and Bale: a decent combination. [Matt Arnoldi]