Flyboys
While watching this flick about the world’s first fighter pilots in World War I, this viewer found himself thinking that this is a classic case of a film being grossly OVERproduced: Everything is too cleaned up and neat, the cinematography tries to be a work of art on every shot, and the lighting is far too luminescent to make what should be a gritty story work (War Is Heaven?). In the lead role, James Franco does acquit himself nicely, even if his character’s Texas accent seems to come and go. Franco definitely has that necessary charisma to make one want to keep watching what he does next, even if he’s saddled with a romantic subplot (with an extremely unsatisfying resolution) with a local French girl, which since he doesn’t understand French and she barely understands English, means that most of their communication is done with VERY small words. Indeed, the script and dialogue mostly consists of the most simplistic, obvious exchanges to barely keep the viewer interested, and despite the film’s attempt to maintain an ensemble effort, several characters seem to get lost in the shuffle, which is bad when (inevitably) some get killed in the dogfight battle scenes. With the exception of Franco and Jean (Leon) Reno as the training captain, director Tony Bill populates the cast with mostly unknowns, which makes the viewer have some issues with keeping score. The biggest problem with this approach is with the character of Reed Cassidy: Aussie actor Martin Henderson does an okay job with the role, but for a guy who’s basically this legendary, badass, veteran American pilot who keeps a tiger (!) as a pet, having a more well-known, established star with some screen presence is not just necessary, it’s required. As a result, he unfairly fades into the woodwork with most of the others, and the emotional resonance with his later scenes is diluted. As for the dogfights themselves, yes sadly, CGI is employed liberally here, but they are still the visceral highlight of the film (though the habit of having Allied and German pilots fly alongside each other so they can exchange dirty looks is a bit much). Overall, a watchable effort by Franco, though it could have been better if some things were done differently…
5/10