Film Reviews

Flyboys

• Rating:
• Director: Tony Bill
• Starring: James Franco
• Details: US / France / 140mins (12A).

Flyboys (or Top Gun: 1917) can't wait to get its action into the air, and who can blame it since the storyline on the ground crashes and burns. Set during WWI, American pilots - including rebel Blaine Rawlings (Franco) - are recruited by the Lafayette Escadrille to battle the superior might of the German Air Force above No Man's Land. Trained by the uptight Captain Thenault (Reno) and ace flyer Reed Cassidy (Henderson), the new boys are put through their paces before they take on the skies. The fight scenes are the only reason to hand over money for this formulaic movie that you've seen done before and done better. It's a rundown of stereotypes (the wiseass, the vet, the young guy, the religious one, the loner) and run-of-the-mill love stories (Franco gets hot and bothered with local French girl Decker whom he found in a whorehouse, but get this - she isn't a whore) and Flyboys feels more comfortable when the boys are, eh, flying. Director Tony Bill overcooks almost every scene, threatening even to ruin some of the daring stunts (that couldn't be done in those planes, but anyway...) he devised by sometimes making it feel like Catch The Pigeon and there's a real fear that Dick Dastardly could swoop in from above at any moment. Apart from the stinking plot, the main problem is having James 'no charisma' Franco as the leading man, an actor cursed with as much screen presence as Ben Affleck or Orlando Bloom.

Review by Gavin Burke