A surprise to know that all the filming of this movie was done in Czech!
This is a beautiful movie about the second world war, about what happened within a certain camp where many US Prisoners of War were kept, the interactions between the German captors and the captures, as well as the interactions between the POW themselves. This movie is quite a success, considering its terrific good plot (with many surprising twists), music, sceneries, performance, etc.
When first heard of the name “Hart's War”, I thought this movie would be about some war between a character Hart, against the German during the WWII. (I was so sure Bruce Willis would be that Hart. Alas, he played the role of Colonel William McNamara, head of all the prisoners of war in that specific camp instead).
Turned out that character “Hart” was another POW, a young lieutenant (Colin Farrell), who joined the camp later (with respect to Col McNamara).
At the end of the movie, I thought hard.
So, the movie was practically about the fights which Lt Hart constantly had, sometimes with his inner self, other times from his interaction with the new environment and people.
His way of interpreting right or wrong, black and white, etc, was challenged badly since the time he happened to get caught by the German. He was ashamed with himself when he had to reveal some army important information to the enemyto avoid more tortures. He felt uncomfortable with Col McNamara and other high rank officers at the camp, for knowing his betraying, but surprised about their attitude of never outright condemned him.
In the camp, he thought he was doing his best by defending a black fellow POW in a court case, against some murder charge which he knew this black officer had not committed. The tensed moments came, gone and kept returning, revealed many more surprising twists.
The story ended poignantly. Quite a few heroes died in victory after fulfilling their last mission: destroyed a huge munition factory which was hidden next door to the POW camp. Lt Hart survived the war to tell the tale of this final heroic act of Col McNamara (the war ended 2 months after that event). Hart himself, perhaps nevercould forget all the lessons he had learnt while in the camp, and became more humble from that.
