Customer Reviews

Only the Brave

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Only the Brave" isn't the best war movie around, nor does it have the shine or polish seen in big-budget, Hollywood movies, but it's very moving, knowing that what happened to the soldiers in the movie is based on historical fact.

"Only the Brave" is about the efforts of the 442/100 military regiment to rescue a Texas battalion that got stuck behind enemy lines during WWII. In doing so, they lost more soldiers than they ended up rescuing.

What makes this movie quite the rarity in American entertainment is that the soldiers at the center of the movie are Japanese-American. Perhaps with a bigger budget, it could have had more screen time to fully flesh out the main characters (played by Lane Nishikawa, Jason Scott Lee, Tamlyn Tomita, Mark Dacascos, Yuji Okumoto and Greg Watanabe), but it does well enough to pass on this rather underreported part of American/WWII history. While they and their families were in American internment camps, they volunteered to join the American military, to prove that they were just as American as anyone else living in the country.

Some critics have given negative reviews of this movie, but I tend to be more lenient with low-budget films. But this movie does overcome its budget restraints and delivers emotionally powerful scenes, and the film is also interesting and educational. It might be of more immediate interest to Japanese-Americans, but it deserves to be seen by those who don't know the history of Japanese-American soldiers.

This movie is not easy to find. It never made it into the theaters in our region, darn it.

My brother happened to see it in California and said it was worth finding the DVD. Checked ebay (ripoff prices galore) and Amazon, and again, Amazon won hands down.

It's a good B movie action flick. Have watched it twice now and am glad I bought it. It will go into the my collection.

The movie's value is it captures a story that actually happened, that needs to be shared with schoolchildren that might never have known the truth. The film itself comes across without enough action to hold the audience's attention, which is too bad, because it is worthwhile information that people should know about.

I wish I had read all the harsh criticism of this before getting it (luckily rented). This is supposed to be the true story of the Japanese Americans, who after being interred at the beginning of WW II (after Pearl Harbor) all volunteered to fight for their adopted country. It is a little known part of the story of that war - a bit like all the Germans we interred too.

This then is the story of the 100th/442 Regimental Combat Team, who after fighting through Italy, end up in the French campaign. They are ordered to relieve a surrounded unit of fellow American soldiers against an enemy that out number them 2 to 1. This then should be an action film. Well it is not, it tries to be a couple of times, but fails, there is so much flash back in a futile attempt to engender empathy, that it becomes confusing and has the opposite effect. During the `action' scenes the camera goes all shaky in a, well futile attempt to engender heightened tension.

It is shot in a way to make it look monochrome a bit like the excellent `Band of Brothers', this is suppose to highlight the blood and `gore' when it happens, and yeah it sort of does but it is always so dragged out that any shock is soon replaced by creeping boredom. The acting in places and dialogue was both stilted and lacking in conviction; to call it over sentimental would be a conservative under statement. There are also these ghost sequences that sit awkwardly with the `plot' and do nothing to take the film forward.

They attempt to deal with the racism that these very brave men had to face and it is attempting to be an homage to what became one of the highest decorated battalions of the war. Director Lane Nishikatawa has really not done himself or the memory of these men any favours and it is a shame as it is a real missed opportunity. Like many commentators I feel there is much more here that could have been explored and it may be that too much has been attempted and that is where it falls down. That said it is still an important film for the story it tells and the memory of these very brave men.

I like this movie because it is a true story. However, this movie does not have a Closed Captioned for deaf.

Terrific film! Kept my interest througout. Low-budget, yes, but a gem none the less! Very intruiging and thought provoking. Four stars out of five.