07-03-21 Flyboys (2006)

Seen: March 21, 2007
Format: Blu-Ray
Rating: 5

When I was in grade school, I had a paperback which told the story of the Escadrille Lafayette. I don't remember its name, but I read it so many times it fell apart.

Flyboys won't suffer that fate.

This is not a bad movie, it's just not a particularly good movie. Perhaps the romantic visions I have from my childhood are too grand for competition. Perhaps they Hollywoodized it too much.

The story is an old one: Boys of disparate backgrounds band together in a time of war to become a fighting unit as men, and find their own personal honor, which entails sacrifices including the ultimate. Flyboys does a decent job serving this story.

It's a longer film than normal, perhaps because it doesn't rush the story, but allows it to develop. The characters are a bit stereotypical, but serve their roles. The enemy remains almost faceless, which depersonalizes the violence to an "acceptable" level. The Germans, with few exceptions, are just bad guys. In contrast, the allies, despite their personal idiosyncrasies, are all "good guys". Even the obligatory heroine is revealed to be "not a prostitute" but the ward of her nieces and nephews, which fits out little moral allegory to a T.

The romance was completely unnecessary. While it may be accurate, it distracts from why we're really here. Given the downer nature of its reality, even the Producers may have been served by eliminating and downplaying it. All that said, Jennifer Decker did an admirable job, and I'll look for her in the future.

James Franco does a good job, and Jean Reno is excellent as always. The rest of the cast is unremarkable, though whether that's a function of their skill, the dialogue or the direction is unclear to me, and I'm not interested enough to try to figure it out.

Visually, the film is a bit too crisp. I'd have preferred something a little grainier, a little darker. The dogfights are depicted well, helping the uninitiated viewer comprehend some of the complexities without degenerating into frantic cuts. There seems to be a bit of cheating in how easily some of the German planes were downed. There is also a startling lack of information concerning the aircraft in the film. There's almost no mention of the manufacturers or models, much less what their advantages and disadvantages were. The word "tactics" is thrown about, but actual exposition limited to something like "the best place to shoot your enemy is from behind".

The rest of the film is a bit too clean. The only locations I really believed were the bar, which seemed to have the right character, and Lucienne's house. Even the trenches felt artificial, which is a shame.

In the end Flyboys is a bit of Hollywood pap. Clean, sanitized, pretty, but ultimately unrewarding and of little substance. Which is a shame considering the men it attempts to honor.

The Good: Dogfight scenes well choreographed and presented.

The Bad: Germans pilots given little respect.

The Ugly: Racial tension alleviated by stock means.