Hart's War (2002)

Genre: Thriller / Drama

Directed by: Gregory Hoblit

Cast: Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard

Running time: 125 minutes

During WWII, First Lieutenant Thomas Hart is captured by German soldiers, tortured for information and then sent off to a POW camp, where he will meet ranking officer Col. William McNamara. When two black pilots are moved into the camp, racial tensions arise. After a man turns up dead, one of the pilots is accused and set to be court-martialed. McNamara appoints Hart as legal representative for the accused, but the whole trial might well be a sham, created as diversion.

The acting is pretty good here, especially on Terrence Howard’s part. I really appreciated his performance.

The major issue here is that this film offers a loaded storyline that became a tad convoluted as it went on. Though the subject matter of racism is an important one, the ending was overly dramatic, in a Hollywood cue-in-the-violins kind-of-way. What started out promising became somewhat laughable by the end of it.

Nonetheless, in spite of the evident flaws, the acting was good and the storyline still compelling, though convoluted, so this movie gets a passing mark from me…by a slim margin.

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