Great New Yorker article about the hellish production

It's hilarious…

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/24/the-ecstatic-truth

The movie turned out alright, but I'm sure it could have been even better
with an experienced producer and not such a crook.

All the artistic choices by Herzog (handheld, no aerial shots, long takes) were right.

This is what makes it more 'real' and alive than 100 other POW movies.

The performances are fine, the music moving, but not overused, the script tight and suspenseful.

There are some minor flaws though:

-the plane crash is strangely edited and don't understand how he possibly could have survived that.
It's not really convincing.

-the death of Duane is strangely edited, too: The farmer hits him slowly 2x with his machete,
while Dieter does nothing. At least we don't see him react. Then suddenly he has his machete
and scares them away. There are some reaction shots of Dieter missing…

- The ending: There's too much triumph and we don't get any more information about what happened to the other guys who escaped.

-While Bale is perfectly cast and delivers one of his best performances, especially in the second half, I found his
constant smiles even in danger and 'positive attitude' facing death a little too much to believe. These people are suffering badly, but Dieter is always in high spirits…I know that the real Dengler was a positive, optimistic guy, but he seems borderline crazy here sometimes.

-It would have been a nice touch to end the movie with archive material/pictures of the real Dengler, just like the archive footage at the beginning. That was very powerful in "The last King of Scotland" for example.