Lieutenant Tommy Hart (Colin Farrell) is a second year law student who is enlisted as an officer’s aide in World War II due to his father’s political pull. Hart is out of his element and it shows when he is captured and thrown into a German prisoner of war camp, top ranking Colonel William McNamara (Bruce Willis) assigns him to defend Lieutenant Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), a black POW accused of murdering a fellow white prisoner. Hart must struggle against his privileged past to prove that he is a true man of honor, worthy of his rank. In preparing a defense for his client, Tommy stumbles upon a plot that will force him to choose between his country, his own morality and his life.
Hart’s War has some points of enjoyment even though it is muttered in clichés. As Lieutenant Scott preaches to us about prejudice you wonder how many times we need to hear the same things. Even when he express himself (“I came here to kill Nazis; if I wanted to kill crackers, I could’ve stayed in Georgia”) you wonder if enough was said. Understandable, yet given the time frame there is still a problem with beating a dead horse. We get the point, but its been said and done many times before. There is nothing revolutionary about this. It’s as if we were still in the second half of the 20th century which is a shame. If Hart’s War followed one line and towed it along the way instead of taking many routes the film might have been something more worth seeing.
+ charlie craine
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