A young soldier is captured by the Nazis and brought to a concentration camp for P.O.W.'s. There complications arise when 2 African-American soldiers are sent there. Most of the American prisoners show racism and one even frames one of them and gets him executed. The man who framed him is later killed and the other black soldier is held responsible. The main soldier then tries to prove his innocence by taking the crime to court. Also, on the day of the verdict several soldiers plan a daring escape leaving this young soldier to learn everything there is about honor and courage.
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The review of this Movie prepared by Jack Bauer
Lt. Tommy Hart (Farrell, looking like an earnest cross between Treat Williams and Keanu Reeves) is a desk officer and former law student who gets captured by the Germans in the final winter of the war. He finds himself in a POW camp where the American prisoner Col. William McNamara (Willis) and worldly German commandant SS Major Wilhelm Visser (Marcel Iures) match wits as the war grinds toward its inevitable conclusion. The story turns out not to be about war or prison camp life or escape (although all these are part of the overall picture), so much as a murder mystery and criminal trial. A racist white prisoner appears to have been fatally stabbed by a black Air Force officer after the victim had taunted the accused and a colleague until the flyboy's buddy was casually executed by the Germans, and the camp commandant allows a trial for the amusement and entertainment of all. Hart is ordered to mount the defense. But all is of course not as it seems. Director Gregory Hoblit (Frequency, Primal Fear, TV's LA Law) and screenwriters Billy Ray and Terry George have made a clean, competent film of writer John Katzenbach's novel, but the results are almost too perfect. Despite fine acting all around -- particularly from Farrell, Iures, and Willis -- and a strong script, the story tries to cover too many bases and there are too many perfect plot twists. A much-better-than-average movie about war, honor, and courage, though.
The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
