The Great Raid

The Great Raid

In World War II, American forces led a successful mission into a remote corner of the Philippines, where more than 500 prisoners of war had been held near a village called Cabanatuan for three years. The movie is quite an informative account of one of modern histories boldest and inspiring rescue missions. This is a movie for people more interested in the subject matter than its dramatic presentation. It shows the hard work and courage of troops whose reality is danger and death.

The film is unique in giving full credit to the Filipino fighters who joined the Rangers and made the local logistics possible by enlisting the secret help of local farmers and villagers (their ox carts were employed to carry prisoners too weak to walk). Moreover, The Great Raid is one of the finer war movies out there that no one has seen. A gripping depiction of human resilience, the film vividly brings to life the personal courage and audacious heroism that allowed a small but stoic band of World War II soldiers to attempt the impossible in the hopes of freeing their captured brothers. It also rendered the appalling conditions within the Japanese death camps and the horrendous mass executions of U.S. soldiers with gruesome accuracy; in one of the most harrowing scenes, a Japanese camp commandant barricades a group of American soldiers in a foxhole, douses them with gasoline and burns them alive. In addition, the mentality of the Japanese back then was to fight to the death, civilian or not. Surrender was weak. Nevertheless, I admire Margaret Utinsky, an astonishingly courageous American war widow who posed as a Lithuanian nurse and helped in the spearheading of the covert quinine delivery, supplies and information from Manila. Though the climax of the film -- the actual raid -- is exciting, the rest of it is bogged down in too many subplots and runs on for too long. The story is one of the greatest examples of this type of operation and the movie is balanced with emotional dilemas, action, and drama

The most moving part of the entire film occurs in the epilogue when we see footage of the real participants after the rescue. In a matter of minutes, this small section touches you in ways the movie just can't do.