FIGHTING THE SEEMINGLY GOOD FIGHT OF WORLD WAR II.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THERE'S IRONY all around in ``Hart's War,'' a World War II prison camp melodrama that turns itself into a courtroom drama and an indictment of American racism and class privilege. That's a lot to deal with, and practically every aspect of it is presented in, if not an ambiguous way, at least a morally complex one.

That the whole thing manages to make some kind of dramatic sense, and then wraps everything up in a stirring tribute to soldierly courage and honor, is some kind of accomplishment. It's a pleasure to finally see a film directed by Gregory Hoblit (``Frequency,'' ``Primal Fear'') that really reflects the multiplane storytelling expertise he developed working on such television series as ``Hill Street Blues,'' ``L.A. Law'' and ``NYPD Blue.''

Adapted by Billy Ray and Terry George (the latter of whom spent some time as a political prisoner in Northern Ireland) from a novel by John Katzenbach (whose father was a POW in a German stalag), ``Hart's War'' maintains an authentic feel no matter how contrived the plot gets.

Up-and-coming Irish actor Colin Farrell plays the title's Lt. Tommy Hart. A Yale law student issued a comfortable, headquarters job due to his congressman father's pull, Hart is unexpectedly captured by German infiltrators at the start of the Battle of the Bulge.

After his prisoner train is mistakenly attacked by a squadron of Mustangs - the first of many situations in which he'll find himself as threatened by his countryman as by the enemy - Hart is force-marched across a gray-and-white winter Germany to a camp where he'll sit out the final months of the war.

He's greeted there with great suspicion by the prisoners' c.o., soldier's soldier Col. Bill McNamara (Bruce Willis, doing the low-key burn that is his most agreeable screen persona). Despite the young officer's lies to the contrary, McNamara quickly realizes that Hart breaks under the lightest interrogation and humiliatingly assigns him to an enlisted men's barracks.

Where the new prisoner is greeted with due respect, especially by camp con man supreme Bedford (Cole Hauser), who makes it his business to make Hart comfortable. But when two other officers, captured pilots from the all-black Tuskegee squadron, are billeted there, Bedford's virulent racism emerges.

Then Bedford is found with his neck snapped. For reasons he keeps close to his chest, McNamara organizes a kangaroo court-martial against the suspected murderer, airman Lincoln Scott (Terrence Howard), and assigns Ivy Leaguer Hart defense attorney duty.

But the ever-calculating McNamara hasn't counted on two things: the rich kid's dedication to real justice and the fact that the cosmopolitan camp commandant, Col. Visser (Romanian actor Marcel Iures), just happens to be a graduate of, of all places, Yale ... where school ties can be strong enough to transcend survival instincts, not to mention ideology and national interest.

Loyalties, alliances and moment-to-moment assumptions about The Right Thing To Do change with mind-bending elasticity throughout the movie. And that more than anything else is what keeps you constantly on edge, even as some of this very serious morality play's plot specifics risk implausibilities of ``Hogan's Heroes'' proportions. But solid acting and a commitment to setting (as best I could tell, the Reich's dying season is accurately detailed from the ages of the soldiers down to the high regard they place on American boots) help the thematically ambitious ``Hart's War'' win the day.

HART'S WAR Three stars

(Rated R: violence, language, nudity)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Bruce Willis, Terrence Howard, Marcel Iures, Cole Hauser.

Director: Gregory Hoblit.

Running time: 2 hr. 5 min.

Playing: Citywide.

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Bruce Willis plays a taciturn officer determined to keep order in a German prison camp in ``Hart's War.''