‘Prisoners of the Sun’ (R)

"Prisoners of the Sun" refers to 1,100 Australian soldiers captured in Southeast Asia by the Japanese during World War II. Only 300 survived. At the beginning of this Australian military tribunal story, what happened to most of them is discovered at a grisly unearthing on Ambon Island, Indonesia.

"Sun" starts off as a reasonably diverting courtroom affair, with determined military prosecutor Bryan Brown up against a case that isn't quite as cut and dried as it seems. The accused are 91 Japanese officers and soldiers, led by camp commander George Takei (Mr. Sulu from "Star Trek"), and seconded by Tetsu Watanabe. Takei, a stoic, Oxford-educated relative of Emperor Hirohito, declares emphatically he knows nothing of atrocities.

Pressed by Brown to explain 315 bayoneted and headless corpses found in the mass grave, not to mention accounts of brutal torture at the camp, he defers blame to Watanabe. The Japanese captain, in turn, maintains his innocence. But hovering around the proceedings with heavy-handed movie villainy is American military observer Terry O'Quinn. That MacArthur's desire to reinstate Japanese overlords and patricians will affect this case is crashingly obvious.

The filmmakers only meet their task passably. "Sun" probably would have worked better as a television movie. On the screen, it's only fitfully satisfying. Co-scripted by Denis Whitburn and Brian A. Williams, "Sun" is based on the real-life doings of Williams's father, who presided over the 1945 tribunal.

But for all the personal dimensions of this project, we never get inside the Brown character. Or, if we do, there's little there. Despite Brown's energetic performance, his character isn't particularly stirring. He's more of a story agent than the center of interest. Even on those occasions when he recklessly invades the stockade to play bad cop with the Japanese, he's uninvolving. Rather than a man obsessed to get to the crux of the matter, he merely comes across as a bad prosecutor.

"Sun" suffers from a certain decentralization. At first, Takei seems to be the movie's evil target. Then he gives way to Watanabe. Even Brown seems to lose importance. Finally, the movie shifts to that courtroom movie staple, the surprise witness. Played by delicately featured Toshi Shioya, he's the camp signals officer who starts feeding Brown what he wants. By the time Shioya takes the stand, the movie's nothing like the one that started.

The depiction of the Japanese national character, as shown here, treads on sensitive political territory. The Japanese are treated with sympathy in the first half of the film; Australian hatred of them is also represented. Certainly the Imperial Army's brutality and maniacal qualities were beyond dispute. But the Japanese characters seem to backslide towards cartoon-strip banzai goons. "Sun" eventually concludes the Americans were Machiavellian, the Imperial Army was diabolical, the Australians were duped and the only good "Jap" was a Spielberg-sympathetic Christian who nobly gave himself up. Is this the correct face on what happened, or are we just watching another movie?