Bataan (1943) Pros: A classic propaganda war film from Hollywood, 'Bataan' is an object lesson in a movie turning defeat into a clarion call for civilians on the home front. Unlike other contemporary films (e.g. 'Objective Burma') this movie demonstrates that American military power and its soldiers aren't supermen always able to defeat the dastardly Jap…instead the main characters are flawed and fractious men with just as much internal conflict within the group as they have against their enemy. For one of the first and only times in early American war film history we see a unit of integrated soldiers (admittedly an ad hoc one) where Asians and Blacks are just as important both as characters as well as fighting men in the movie's action. In this way it sets a precedent (admittedly a rudimentary one) for later Vietnam War films such as 'Hamburger Hill' and 'Platoon'. 'Bataan' also perpetuates the set-up of a group of people brought together under duress, and slowly but surely they are eliminated one by one. It could be said this is a revisit of the Agatha Christie whodunnits in a war film, and 'Bataan' certainly has echoes for anyone who has seen the likes of 'Aliens', 'The Hills Have Eyes 2', 'Event Horizon' etc. The cast is extremely solid, filled with recognizable stars and character actors from the forties (Robert Taylor as leading man, but also with such scions of the studio era such as George Murphy, Robert Walker, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Nolan). Cons A propaganda film from the forties will have a hard time reaching an audience from the current era, where cynicism and more brutal war films have made the likes of 'Bataan' and later efforts (e.g. 'The Sands of Iwo Jima') almost redundant. In a post-modern world where war heroes almost always have as much cultural integrity as the politicians who send them to fight no one can ever conceive and film a movie like 'Bataan' and expect it to be popular. The historical veracity of the film is tenuous at best, and it fails to do what more modern war movies do when it comes to a defeat (i.e. a self-examination of the reasons why such an event came to pass). Yes, this is a small scale film that was for the home front; however contrasted to a much later movie such as 'Zulu Dawn', in 'Bataan' the man who was behind so much of the failed effort is let off scot-free (i.e. Macarthur). Truth and historical awareness is given short shrift. Final Rating  2 out of 5 Bill Collins
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