5/5 A Hero's Story
  by ohiobavaria
This is Herzog's best documentary due to the outstanding story of Dieter Dengler's life, POW experience, the miracle of his escape and how well he continues with his life afterwards. It is also one of the most touching and inspiring movies I ever watched. When you see the great humanity with which Dieter calms down one of the laotian men trying to reenact his captivity for this documentary you can do nothing but admire him.
What might the point of this movie be: Dieter's obsession to fly was his doom and his cure? How to cope with life's hardships? The life story of a great person?
Herzog brings Dieter so close to the viewer that most will shed a tear for him at the end. I did.

4/5 I tip my hat to Dieter Dengler !!!
  by Matthew G. Sherwin (last seen screaming at Amazon customer service)
Werner Herzog turned out an gripping documentary when he made Little Dieter Needs to Fly. This fine documentary tells the true story of Dieter Dengler who went through h*ll after being shot down in his plane while on a mission during the Vietnam War. While this isn't exactly a pretty story, the film moves along at a good pace. The cinematography is excellent and Herzog went to great lengths to recruit native Asian men (in Laos) who essentially act out some of the things his torturers did to him when he was their prisoner.

When the movie starts, we quickly learn that Dieter was only a small child when he watched helplessly as Allied planes nearly crashed into his bedroom window when they made air raids on Germany during World War II. While this certainly could have caused Dieter to avoid aviation, it had the opposite effect: Dieter wanted more than anything to be able to fly a plane. When he was eighteen, Dieter left Germany to immigrate to America; and he learned to fly. He was also drafted into the air force during the Vietnam War; and the majority of this film has Dieter telling us his story so we know what he experienced as a prisoner of war held by the Vietcong.

What happened to Dieter is so terrible it's a small miracle he survived. Actually, I take that back--it's a HUGE miracle that he survived. I don't want to spoil too much of it for you but I will say that his captors were so cruel I haven't seen anything like it except for the Nazi concentration caps during World War II. His stories about the exact nature of his torture, the prison camp where he was held and a planned escape are harrowing to say the least. There's another amazing story of him and a buddy almost going over a monstrous, crushing waterfall on a raft; they just managed to escape death that day, too.

I won't tell you how Dieter ultimately found freedom; it's very poignant and a stunning tale that I won't forget anytime soon.

My only disappointment is that, as others have noted, we know next to nothing else about Dieter Dengler. True, Dieter tells us that he learned to be a blacksmith and that he toiled hard hours as an apprentice; but we honestly learn little else about him except for a very quick view of his current home outside of San Francisco where he hoards tons of food to make sure that he never has to go hungry again. The film essentially remains a tale of Dieter's experiences as a prisoner; there is little said about his childhood and nothing at all is said about his current personal life except that he likes to open and close doors so that he doesn't feel trapped like he was when he was brutally tortured.

Overall, Little Dieter Needs to Fly hit me over the head like a ton of bricks; this story is all THAT shocking and horrific. It's a real testament to Dieter's strength that he lasted through everything that came his way. I certainly wouldn't have lasted through all that; I tip my hat to Dieter Dengler!

1/5 Great story but dry documentary
  by Harry M. Shin (Livermore, CA USA)
1. I watched the movie version of this story (Rescue Dawn) and thus wanted to check out the "real story".

2. Bottomline: obviously this is a compelling story, but in terms of a critical review of the DVD itself--> a total snooze. It is what it is--> a documentation of the man and his life; nothing more, nothing less. In terms of a more interesting Herzog documentary--> Grizzly Man is much much better. More controversial but also more interesting as a film etc...

3. Tangent: after watching Rescue Dawn and then this documentary, I now realize that Rescue Dawn was fairly close representation of the reality of what happened. A decent movie, but not great.

4/5 I especially appreciated this documentary because
  by That Was Cool. (Phoenix, Arizona, USA)
it continued the life of Dieter Dengler as it ended in the story "German Boy."

German Boy is a wonderful book on how it was for a small German boy, little Dieter (Dieter Dengler), to grow up in post war Germany.

When I started watching this movie, I had no idea that the Little Dieter in the title was, in deed, the little boy in German Boy.

Hertzog's style is in all its full glory in this film. I like the jumps back and forth in time, and the way Hertzog takes Dieter back to the very places he was captive so that Dieter can say exactly how he felt at the time.

It was rather touching the way Dieter told one of the Laotian's that it was okay, comforting him, and trying to keep him from being afraid.

Such a caring man.

BTW, there was a feature film made about Dieter Dengler's experiences when he was shot down in his U.S. Navy AD-6 Skyraider, also produced by Hertzog, called "Rescue Dawn" which actually dramatically demonstrates all the things Dieter Dengler went through as a captive including his friend getting his head chopped off. It is also a very good movie.

I saw that on [...] but I bet amazon.com (my favorite retailer) has it for sale at a good price.

4/5 Dieter & Herzog Will Capture & Keep Your Attention
  by D. Hupp (Woodbridge, VA United States)
Very compelling story and moving re-enactment of a grueling, death-defying prisoner of war escape by an amazing human being, Dieter Dengler. While I had not heard of Dengler before watching this film, I've read several first-hand prisoner-of-war accounts from the Vietnam War and found Herzog's documentary not only intriguing but revealing of the man who went through those horrible experiences. That was a unique dimension that heightened my interest in the film and my appreciation of Herzog as a director.

This is the first of Herzog's films/documentaries that I had seen, and it whetted my appetite for more of his work. I think it's much better than Rescue Dawn, starring Christian Bale although I enjoyed that one too.

LITTLE DIETER is fascinating from start to finish. I highly recommend it to anyone who's a Herzog fan but hasn't seen this film yet AND to those who are interested in military affairs, especially those during the Vietnam War.