It was made in 2005, so maybe it has been discussed here often. My search turned up only a post about the book that the movie is based on.

I don't know anything of the history of this incredible raid by 120 Rangers-- vastly outnumbered by Japanese-- to rescue more than 500 American POWs from a prison camp in the Phillipines in WWII. But the movie gripped me right from the opening to the final actual footage of the prisoners and some of the Rangers.

I highly recommend.

Good flick but I was bummed they didn't have an actual P-61 do the buzzing of the camp as a distraction.

What was the book? Was it Ghost Soldiers?

That book was EXCELLENT.

I guess they could have CGI'd a P-61 in there, but there aren't any flying -61s right now (much less in 2005). . .

I just noticed this on Netflix, looks great and I’ll give it a look very soon.
Tks for the review.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
What was the book? Was it Ghost Soldiers?

That book was EXCELLENT.

I guess they could have CGI'd a P-61 in there, but there aren't any flying -61s right now (much less in 2005). . .

Yeah, Ghost Soldiers. You wanna read it if the film at all interests you. Film is well done but should be considered a companion piece to the book. I haven’t read it in close to a decade, not even sure if my copy survived the multiple moves since, but I suddenly wanted to re-read it. “Gorking the ducks” entered my lexicon from there.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

“Gorking the ducks” entered my lexicon from there.

I laughed so hard at that part (it makes perfect sense in context).

Quack
Quack
Qu***GORK!!!!***


The book is MUCH better, though the film is excellent.

‘We don’t know what you’re doing, or how you’re doing it, but you need to stop’ set me off laughing nearly as hard.

This movie should've, given it's historical significance, received A LOT more publicity from the movie studios. It's unfortunate that the American public needs to be led by the nose with splashy, over-the-top, down-the-throat marketing, in order to generate any kind of interest.

I do wonder, if this movie would've been made in the 60's during the heyday of WWII movie-making, if this movie would be placed in the pantheon of adventurous war movies such as: The Great Escape, Guns of Navarone, Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heros, etc.

I think part of it is that it's not as climactic as you might think. They didn't jazz the story up too much, and the Rangers did such a 'near' perfect job that it was all over and done without too much flair.
As much as people love Saving Private Ryan, that movie is heavily stylized.

quote:

I do wonder, if this movie would've been made in the 60's during the heyday of WWII movie-making, if this movie would be placed in the pantheon of adventurous war movies such as: The Great Escape, Guns of Navarone, Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heros, etc.

I kept wondering, as I watched the movie, "Why haven't I heard of this movie?"

I also agree that it is not stylized and hyped, like so many movies. I don't know the history of this raid, but my impression watching the movie was that it was probably very true to facts and reality. I don't want to give anything away, but just in the way that the men and women were kept apart, as would have to have been the case-- though some torrid love/sex scenes would no doubt have helped its marketability.

The fairly complex, interlocked plan for the rescue is laid out in detail, so once Reilly finally takes the signal shot-- and that was a very dramatic build-- it was really engaging to follow: okay, they did that, now the next step is....

I'm planning now on reading Ghost Soldiers.

Thanks for the recommendation! I just watched it and very much enjoyed it also.

IIRC this movie had a poster with a GI with a Beretta 92 and I remember thinking “I’m out”.

So the movie itself is solid then?

Maybe I am thinking of something else.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:
IIRC this movie had a poster with a GI with a Beretta 92 and I remember thinking “I’m out”.

...

There are several different posters on IMDB. Is this the one you remember>

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0...iaviewer/rm253711616

I think so.

quote:

Originally posted by SevenPlusOne:
I think part of it is that it's not as climactic as you might think. They didn't jazz the story up too much, and the Rangers did such a 'near' perfect job that it was all over and done without too much flair.
As much as people love Saving Private Ryan, that movie is heavily stylized.

And it’s pretty much 95% fiction, other than a family lost a bunch of kids and one of them happened to be in Normandy.

Thanks we watched it last night. Very good story.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:

So the movie itself is solid then?

The movie is excellent. There is a contrived 'love story' (of course there is), but that part is not historically accurate. The woman in the movie existed, and she ran an intel service out of Manila. IIRC, she told everybody she was from Spain or some other neutral country. Her husband died in either the war or in captivity.

The book is MUCH better than the movie, though. The book goes into much more detail. I saw the movie when it came out and read the book about a year ago. I hadn't even realized that the movie was based on that particular book. There's just so much detail that the movie cannot portray. If I had to pick between the book and the movie, it would be the book without question.

Two things I loved, that were more easily derived from the book. At that time, they were operating by the seat of their pants, with no experience in how to conduct such rescue operations, so:

1. When they got to the main gate, they didn't have any bolt cutters. Someone opened up on the padlock with a Thompson, like in the movies. Amazingly, it actually shot the lock off and they got the gate open.

2. They didn't have any canned, explicit phrases they were supposed to use, calculated to explain and elicit reactions from the POWs in the fewest words. But they had seen movies, so they all spontaneously started yelling at the POW's, "Jailbreak! It's a jailbreak!"

Gotta love American GI ingenuity.

My wife and I enjoyed this movie last night. Amazing but true.

quote:

2. They didn't have any canned, explicit phrases they were supposed to use, calculated to explain and elicit reactions from the POWs in the fewest words. But they had seen movies, so they all spontaneously started yelling at the POW's, "Jailbreak! It's a jailbreak!"

Yes, I loved "Jailbreak!" They also said what must have been the sweetest three words in the universe to these bewildered prisoners: "You're going home!"