Rescue Dawn (2006) ****
http://billsmovieemporium.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/review-rescue-dawn-2006/
It's all the best of Herzog, the meditations on life, the conflict with nature, the weird as hell moments and surreality of it all, but like usual Herzog pulls it all off. I especially liked seeing Steve Zahn in something serious, he's a favorite of mine in comedies but it was cool to see him do so well in a serious role. I would say the same thing about Toby Huss, but he's been great in serious roles before and is great in every role he plays. Most of all Rescue Dawn is another film that has helped boost Christian Bale back up in my eyes, his terrible turns in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Terminator Salvation seriously soured me on him as an actor, but his performance in Rescue Dawn and a few other movies I have seen recently helped me remember that he can be a great actor when he wants to be.
So glad you liked this so much, Bill, and I agree with ya'll about Bale's performance - he's so good in this. Bill, I can't remember; have you seen
Little Dieter yet? I think Bale really captures something about who Dieter Dengler was, based on what I saw in the documentary; it felt like an authentic evocation of his personality. And was it on the special features of
Rescue Dawn that Bale or Herzog said Dengler's two sons inadvertently called Bale "dad" a couple of times? Can't remember where I heard that, but anyway, it makes sense.