The escape plan is ingenious, and almost works flawlessly, except that DeBruin and another prisoner chicken out, leaving Martin and Dengler in the lurch. They head to the jungle, where they meet up with DeBruin and the others. They exchange words, and part, never to see each other again. Martin and Dengler spend weeks in the jungle, navigating rivers, to get to the Mekong River and cross into freedom in Thailand. Eventually, the pair stumble upon a village, where the locals behead Martin. Dengler escapes, and eventually is picked up by an American helicopter on a scouting mission. At the hospital, he is interrogated and held captive by CIA operatives, until his buddies from the Navy surreptitiously sneak him out to a hero’s welcome back on his ship.
The DVD, put out by MGM, which picked up the independent film, has some good special features. There is, as always, a sterling audio commentary by Herzog, prompted by interviewer Norman Hill. In it we get interesting nuggets on the film’s production, such as its being shot in 44 days in Thailand, coming in under schedule and under budget. We learn interesting facts about the crew and Dengler and his ordeal, as well as the film’s being shot in reverse, with the last scenes shot first, since it was harder and slower for the actors to lose weight, but easier to gain it back.
There is a 45 minute long featurette on the making of the film, three theatrical trailers for other films, and three deleted scenes with optional commentary by Herzog — a real rarity for, as Herzog says, like a carpenter, he does not like to dwell on his shavings. The featurette also makes it known that the film was produced by a new production company, Gibraltar Entertainment, founded by pro basketball star Elton Brand; the rare case of a non-solipsistic pro athlete giving back to the greater society in ways not leveraged for their own personal reputation’s enhancement. Another note of interest is that, although Herzog alone is credited with the screenplay, in the DVD commentary he thanks Zak Penn, whom Herzog starred for in the comic mockumentary Incident At Loch Ness, for helping him with the American dialogue
Rescue Dawn succeeds on many levels, especially the visual, for the ‘eye level realism’ that Herzog perfected years ago dominates the screen. We see the jungle and mountains not from sweeping panoramas, but as the people do, from the point of insignificance. The human drama plays out against a vast scale of natural drama. The hand-held camera work is especially grueling and exciting.
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