Home -> Movies -> The Great Raid DVD

Release Date: August 12th, 2005

Running Time: 122 minutes

U.S. Box Office: $10,166,502

Rating: R for strong war violence and brief language.

Director: John Dahl

Starring: Benjamin Bratt, James Franco, Clayne Crawford, Marton Csokas, Joseph Fiennes

Critics Reviews: 5 out of 10

Chicago-Sun Times Here is a war movie that understands how wars are actually fought. After "Stealth" and its high-tech look-alikes, which make warfare look like a video game, "The Great Raid" shows the hard work and courage of troops whose reality is danger and death. Roger Ebert

ReelViews The Great Raid seeks to be the kind of epic war film that was popular during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. And, unlike many recent entries in the genre, it does not seek to take a revisionist look at war. The central premise is promising: a factually-based account of a 1945 combined U.S./Philippine raid into a Japanese prison camp to free American GI's. James Berardinelli

Boston Globe "The Great Raid" amounts to a noble failure. This is sad news for those of us who remain hopelessly partial to Dahl's mean streak. The failure we can live with. It's the noble part that will never do. Wesley Morris

USA Today Movies about World War II valor apparently are a lost art, which is a lofty word to bring up when savaging The Great Raid. Just about any golden age Hollywood hack could have made a zestier drama about one of the greatest rescue missions in U.S. military history. Mike Clark

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The Great Raid Official site for the movie The Great Raid, based on an actual rescue mission in World War II.