Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

A decade ago, writer-director Werner Herzog directed Little Dieter Need To Fly, an extraordinary documentary about a one time Dieter Dengler, said to be the only American to ever break out of a Laotian POW camp. He crashed his plane (on his first mission, no less) behind enemy lines during the Vietnam War, and spent his time in the camp with fellow Americans and American sympathizers who had been there for years. They were scared, starving, and without hope. But Dengler absolutely refused to remains a captive and spent months plotting not only his escape, but the escape of everyone in the camp, located in a dense jungle that served as more of a prison than the prison itself. His story of life in the camp as well as outside, attempting to make it somewhere where American soldiers might find him (if they didn't mistake him for the enemy and kill him inadvertently), is unforgettable, and Herzog has done a phenomenal job adapting his inspiring documentary into an equally powerful feature.

Rescue Dawn's Dieter (who died of Lou Gehrig's disease in 2001) is played by Christian Bale, an actor who still finds ways to surprise and amaze me with his range. Between playing Batman, his scary skinny turn in The Mechanic, his heroic turn in The Prestige, and his downright schizophrenic work in last year's Harsh Times, Bale's abilities to delve into the heart of his characters appear limitless. He embodies the boundless energy and heroism (sometimes heroic to a fault) that Dieter became known for. Spending years in a prison camp simply wasn't going to be his fate. And it's clear from this film that his spirit was infectious. There are two other American prisoners in the camp, and it's clear their will has been broken. Gene (played by the Manson-looking Jeremy Davies) and Duane (a startling turn by Steve Zahn) find themselves caught up in Dieter's whirlwind of planning, spying on the guards, and planning for an attack that will set them free.

Herzog's visual approach to the film is fairly free-spirited as well. We're never quite sure how much time has passed in and out of the camp, which may be confusing to some but I found it wholly appropriate, since in all likelihood the soldiers had no idea what day or month it was either, especially once they escaped into the jungle. Oh, and if you think I'm spoiling anything by telling you they escaped, I'm not. As nerve-wracking as the scenes in the camp are, Dieter and Duane's journey trying to find the border into Vietnam and link up with potential rescuers is often painful and awful to watch, despite this being a PG-13 movie. The men soon find out that the only thing worse than not being rescued is to see the means of your rescue right in front of you and have it slip away. Herzog wants Rescue Dawn to be as much of an endurance test for his audience as he clearly made it for his actors. There are few minutes that went by while watching this film where I didn't put myself in Dieter's shoes (when he had shoes) and wonder how well I would have done standing with him during this time in his life.

Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (the film I'm guessing many will compare Rescue Dawn to) and the companion making-of documentary Burden of Dreams are all the evidence one needs to show that the German filmmaker's obsession with truth and authenticity trump all other things, including the safety and sanity of his cast and crew. Rescue Dawn feels dangerous and made me incredibly uneasy as I watched it, but there is no doubt in my mind that's exactly Herzog's intention. He also fills his film with extended, oddly placed shots of nature or activity that doesn't really move the story along but feels like we're seeing moments that aren't scripted, adding to the spontaneous nature of much of the movie. It's in these small moments we get to know these men and their surroundings.

Herzog has spent much of the last few years focusing on his documentary filmmaking (with My Best Fiend and Grizzly Man being the best known of the bunch), and I think that shows in Rescue Dawn, a movie that should take great pride in delivering a completely believable survival nightmare that few of us could even conceive of, let alone live through. Bale, Zahn, and Davies may have re-set the standard for prisoner-of-war films, while Herzog remains the borderline crazy genius who was smart enough to cast them. This inspired film will test your limits, your empathy, and your definition of heroism.

Capone