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Flyboys
Rated PG-13 for war action violence and some sexual content;
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Movies Stories
If you've seen a few movies, you'll recognize at once which characters must survive and which will must be dispatched in battle and exactly how the climax will be set up and played out.
And knowing the outcome, you'll put your mind to details such as who will blow his brains out, because if no one does then a whole earlier speech won't have mattered.
Still, this is a movie you can respond to and carry around for a time after, gratefully.
As scripted by Phil Sears, Blake T. Evans and David S. Ward and directed with heartfelt zeal by Tony Bill, "Flyboys" sensibly starts with a peek into the lives of several young Americans who, for individual reasons, will pilot warplanes for France's Lafayette Escadrille until the United States enlists in The Great War (later named World War I).
Cowboy Blaine Rawlings (James Franco) has the native know-how to fly and to fire weapons. As the designated hero, he'll be the one to find a sweet French girl, Lucienne (Jennifer Decker, who could pass for Jessica Lange's kid sister) and to forge a gentleman's rivalry with a German ace called The Black Falcon (Gunnar Winbergh).
Notable among the other Americans trained by Capt. Georges Thenault (Jean Reno) are the soft-spoken and bespectacled Lyle Porter (Michael Jibson), who carries a Bible, and Briggs Lowry (Tyler Labine), a rich and pompous kid who is the unexpected designated choice as the one who must prove himself to an unaffectionate father.
"Flyboys" is annoyingly reticent about placing the central characters in a larger context. How many Americans were there overall? How many at the squadron's peak? How many shifted into the French or American Air Service(s) after the States entered the war?
It concentrates on cycles of drinking, courting and aerial dogfights, too often settling for broad strokes where telling details would work better, but, for all of its familiarity, making a few of its characters matter.
It isn't a movie likely to be sought out by general audiences, which is a pity. It's a proud American military drama that serves us better than anything else in the marketplace.
- In wide release.
