Film Reviews

Hart's War

• Rating:
• Director: Gregory Hoblit.
• Starring: Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard, Cole Hauser, Marcel Iures, Linus Roache
• Details: US / 125 minutes / (15PG).

Rising Irish actor Colin Farrell plays the eponymous character, Lt. Thomas W. Hart, a Yale student and the son of a senator who is doing his national service in a command post during the latter period of the Second World War. Ambushed while he drives an officer back to the frontline one afternoon, Hart finds himself in a German stalag, where he is given a hard time by the highest-ranking officer, Col. William McNamara (Willis). After a bigoted fellow prisoner is murdered, a recently captured black air force pilot, Lincoln Scott (Howard), is accused of the crime, and the Germans allow a showcase trial. For reasons unclear, McNamara decides that Hart should be Scott's attorney, despite the fact that he has virtually no courtroom experience. One of those films that attempt to be all things to all men, Hart's War is a misguided and misdirected venture, lacking urgency and real dramatic tension. Hoblit doesn't seem to know what he's doing with the material, and routinely allows events to spiral off in preachy, barely related directions. Farrell and Willis aren't bad in their respective roles, but they're let down by the inexcusable screenplay.

Review by Garreth Murphy