Cold war for cold Hart

The problem with Hart's War is that it is actually four movies rolled into one. It starts as Second World War blockbuster action, following the fortunes of a wet-behind-the-ears young American officer who, having told more in interrogation than he should have done, is shipped to a PoW camp where he must atone for his sins by proving himself a real man.

For a while, action gives way to a psychological drama. Then the arrival of two black fighter pilots into the white camp turns the story into an examination of war and race, before it finally slips into more comfortable court-martial murder drama with a subplot about escape and sabotage. Add a tussle of manhood between a Harvard-educated Nazi camp commandant and a zealous American Major (Bruce Willis, without the smile) willing to cut moral corners to get his trusty men back into the war and you have a film rather like a bad facelift: the plot stitched too tight for any real character or emotional truth to show through.

It ends with an orgy of self-sacrifice not matched since the entire slave army in Kubrick's Spartacus tried to take the rap for its leader, and makes a final back flip into Colditz.

Hart's War
Cert: cert15