Director: Luke Moran.
Starring: Luke Moran, Sean Astin, Sara Paxton, Omid Abtahi, John Heard, Michael Welch, John Robinson.
Running Time: 102 minutes
Certificate: 15
The title itself, PRISONER OF WAR, already has us asking deep and meaningful questions. Who are the prisoners of war? Is it the literal prisoners we see in the film or the young men going out to war for the first time? Are we in fact all prisoners of war? PRISONER OF WAR, or BOYS OF ABU GHRAIB as it’s known in the US, may not have any solid concrete answers, but it does give a genuine and good hearted look at a serious issue.
Sent out on his first tour Jack Farmer, played by writer and director Luke Moran, ends up volunteering as an MP to preside over the POWs. He starts off as the innocent with burning questions about the ways the prisoners are treated, but soon balances between innocent and a perpetrator of such crimes. Is torture ever acceptable? These are hard questions with no easy answers and for the most part Moran constructs a character and a film which attempts to explore issues rather than have a definite stance.
Elsewhere the film creates a grand sense of what it must be like to be a soldier, not just the fighting and fear, but also the boredom and need for camaraderie. Friendships are set up, but we also see these young men busting each other’s balls, masturbating, getting involved in scraps and so forth. With the use of a hard rock soundtrack, we’re also pumped up to a level of excitement that many war films are afraid to suggest. Moran is also adept at providing little touches that hit home in subtle ways, such as the subtitles beginning with 1 Day In Iraq, before changing to — Days Until Home. It’s a wonderful little touch which suggests a real passionate soul and eye for detail.
Despite being a genuinely good natured film with its heart in teh right place, it is also very predictable. The film plays out exactly as expected with sequences that seem familiar from just about every war film/prisoner film. It doesn’t make it less of a film, but it does hamper the engagement for the audience. Characters evolve the way we expect and events happen that we’ve known were due since the film started. Overall a good directorial debut from Moran, with strong performances and a valuable message. It sets out to mean something despite a lack of budget and apart from a heavy handed final scene, this is a film worth taking notice of.
[usr=3]PRISONER OF WAR is out on DVD now.
