Herzog's film is starkly at odds with Dieter Dengler's own book "Escape From Laos," and Dengler's statements in the documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997) , when it comes to the character of Gene DeBruin. The real Gene DeBruin (played in the movie by Jeremy Davies ) was spoken of highly by Dengler: He described DeBruin as a strong leader and peacemaker when differences threatened their escape plan. Phisit Indradat - the last living survivor of the camp - called DeBruin "The finest man I have ever met." He believes that Dengler would be appalled by L'alba della libertà (2006), had he lived to see it, because of the character assassination of Gene Deburin. Indradat had high praise for the filming location but otherwise he said it technically showed a great lack of research.Indradat and DeBruin's family repeatedly tried to reach out to Herzog in pre-production to get a balanced representation of the events, but no one could reach him. Key events in "Rescue Dawn" that present Dengler as the mastermind, were in fact the work of DeBruin, who spent 2.5 years in the prison before Dengler arrived. He and fellow prisoners spent that time formulating an escape plane and storing rice in bamboo tubes in preparation. In the movie version, DeBruin is not only against any escape, but it is Dengler who comes up with the idea to store rice in the tubes (and DeBruin who tries to eat it beforehand).According to Dieter Dengler it was DeBruin who got the important nail, long before Dengler even arrived. And DeBruin was part of the attack on the guards, not a no-show like in the film. Debruin chose to stay back and care for a sick POW, who was not able to escape with the others through the jungle. This heroic, selfless act lead ultimately to his death. Herzog's screenplay and Davies' performance made basically a 'movie villain' out of the real-life hero DeBruin, but still used his real name in a movie, that claims to be based on fact. Herzog apparently regretted this misrepresentation later.

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