Product: Flyboys [Blu-ray] (2006)
Rating: 1.0
Another one shot down in flames
Looking through the past reviews of this film / DVD I am forced to wonder what film some other reviewers were watching. I cannot imagine anybody above the age of 20 finding this film either entertaining or convincing. I find it impossible to recommend anything about "Flyboys", except perhaps a couple of good performances to lighten up the absolute failure of its execution.Like the majority of people who chose to watch this film, I approached it because a) It was a war film and b) it was a film about air combat.However, neither of these parameters was satisfied, even minimally.Regarding its depiction of war, well you can forget it. Besides some truly strange "history" involving mythical German advances, none of the actual nods to WWI make any impact whatsoever. I was NEVER once convinced that the film makers had a clue about the period in which their story was set. There is no real sense of worry or despair throughout the film that accompanied the WWI pilots of real life. The Pretty boys of the Lafayette Escadrille don't share the same sense of "not coming back" as the RFC (Royal Flying Corps) pilots of "Aces High" or the Jasta pilots of "The Blue Max". I know the pilots of the Lafayette Escadrille were volunteers, but there is no doubt or cynicism regarding the war or a sense of nervousness or apprehension. In fact all the pilots seem somewhat happy to be there. They obviously weren't aware of the average lifespan of a WWI pilot or the fact that none of the major combatants allowed their pilots to use parachutes until the Germans introduced the practice in 1917. Being issued a pistol to shoot yourself in the head instead of being burned alive should have caused some raised eyebrows.The aerial sequences, which should have been the star of this film, are in a word `terrible'. There are more convincing effects, physics and graphics in most computer games these days than there are in "Flyboys". It's really a shame that the producers didn't get some physicians on board to point out that WWI aircraft were subject to real life limitations....and of course, every German aircraft was a Fokker DR1 triplane....and painted red."Flyboys" also includes some of the usual clichés of modern Hollywood war movies. There is the obligatory love interest and the obligatory black sacrifice, this time in the shape of Jennifer Decker and Abdul Salis.As the unlikely love of James Franco's lead character, Decker is just irritating. Their scenes are obviously there as a clumsy filler in between the flying scenes and they are a complete waste of time.Salis's character, presumably based on real life pilot Eugene Bullard (the only black pilot of WWI), is also extremely annoying. The idea of introducing a black pilot into the film should have been a good one (even if a little forced), but in "Flyboys" one gets the feeling that he is reduced to the level filling the ranks of the "good guys" simply as a PC device. I don't think there's anything mentioned regarding the difficulty Bullard faced in real life, or that he was barred from entry to a US squadron on racial grounds. It's very misleading and it's hard not to be cynical about it. A movie about Eugene Bullard proper would have been a great idea, but I doubt that will ever happen.The bottom line about "Flyboys" comes down to this, if you want to watch a colour film about flying in WWI, then watch "The Blue Max", "Aces High" or Roger Corman's "Von Richthofen and Brown". Even with the errors those films incorporate, they are still far, far ahead of the fiasco that is "Flyboys".