Hart's War is a movie about honor, loyalty, alliances and bigotry. As with most war films, it shows us the stress military men so often find themselves under. These men are prisoners of war, dealing with interrogations and circumstances that are out of their control.
It starts with Lt. Hart, a young officer played by Colin Farrell. While driving someone back to the front he gets captured by the Nazis, interrogated, and sent to a POW camp. There he meets a Colonel, played by Bruce Willis, who has the Lt. bunk in the enlisted men’s barracks. This causes a few eyebrows to lift, but not as many as when, a few days later, two Tuskegee black pilots arrive at the prison. They are met with curiosity and some outright racism.
I understand that the military was still segregated then and the idea of bunking whites and blacks together was something rare. However, the racism seems a bit forced for plot sake. Sure, racism was prevalent then but the Nazis were the enemy, not a fellow American. Nothing binds two different people together better and faster than a shared common enemy.
The most vocal bigot in the barracks is soon found murdered and one of the Tuskegee pilots is accused of his murder. The Colonel assigns Lt. Hart to defend the pilot, with much of the rest of the film being the subsequent trial.
The previews for Hart's War show explosions and Bruce Willis saying something about 35 men escaping, with some quick shots of men climbing out of the tunnel. That preview is very misleading as Hart’s War is not an action film. One scene has the train carrying the POWs getting bombed. It is dramatic and exciting but has little to do with the plot. The tunnel and the escape, although let known in the previews, are not even in the film until the last half hour. The trailer gave away what is intended as part of a big plot reveal.
This film was publicized as a war flick but is a pretty decent drama. All of the characters are portrayed as flawed and very human, including the Nazi Company Commander. Colin Farrell does a legitimate job as the nervous Lt. who finds his voice when acting as a defense lawyer for the accused Tuskegee airman. This is potentially a star-making role. His small brown eyes express a man trying hard to prove himself even though he knows some of his weaknesses have been exposed.
Bruce Willis can play two characters. The first one is a cocky smart ass, and the second is serious and hardboiled. Here he plays the latter. You will not see his trademark smirk here as he walks through this supporting role like John Wayne in any number of war films.
Terrence Howard is decent as the accused pilot. When he is on the stand answering questions, he starts pontificating about how Nazi prisoners were treated better in Alabama than African Americans. True or not, the soliloquy is more of a social statement than a plot development. I found it interesting that this movie humanizes the Nazi Commander by showing him drunk and making reference to his dead son, while the American bigots are narrow minded and, at best, defiant of authority.
Although Hart’s War is a worthwhile tense wartime mystery/thriller, the stereotypes are a bit trying and it stretches believability a bit too much. In real life, 32 black Tuskegee airmen were captured and became prisoners of war. I imagine every one of them has a story worth hearing. Theirs are some biographies I would like to see.
