Inspired by real events,
Flyboys follows a group of young Americans who volunteered to fly and die for France as members of the Lafayette Escadrille. The true story is unusual enough and intriguing, and sounded like the perfect fodder for a feature film - although World War I isn’t exactly a hot subject for movies in the 21st century. Done right,
Flyboys stood a real chance of connecting with audiences...
Unfortunately, the interesting true story was given the standard Hollywood treatment.
Flyboys takes the easy route by cramming as many war/action movie clichés into its almost 2 ½ running time as possible. Seriously, you couldn't insert one more worn-out cliché into this thing if you tried (and please don’t tell me anyone would want to try).
The Story of Flyboys
It’s 1917 and France needs help. America hasn’t yet joined with the Allied Forces in what will go down in history as ‘The Great War’ but a bunch of strapping young men decide not to wait for the U.S. to jump into action. These disparate 20something year olds are just gnawing at the bit for a chance to take to the air and shoot down Germans.
The flyboys of Flyboys are all the usual suspects. There’s the snotty rich kid with a chip on his shoulder, the down-home farm boy who’s bound to emerge a leader, and the guy propelled into action because he wants to live up to his family’s legacy and join the ranks of military heroes. Also along for the ride are the requisite screwball who can’t shoot straight, the religious guy who trusts God to be his co-pilot, and the lone African American escaping from racism in the United States by taking off for France.
Jennifer Decker and James Franco in Flyboys.
© MGMEven though they’ve been told the average lifespan of a pilot is about 3-6 weeks, the American members of the Lafayette Escadrille - as portrayed in
Flyboys - don’t seem overly worried about the possibility of dying. Instead, they spend their time reading and drinking and generally following along the established character paths dictated by those who’ve played these cookie cutter roles in previous war movies. You
know the snob is going to start out looking down his nose at the African American before eventually coming around. The hero is going to get the French beauty, even though they don’t speak the same language and have nothing in common. And of course he’ll have to play the hero by coming to her rescue under dangerous circumstances
and she'll learn to speak English at an incredible speed. Every single plot line in
Flyboys has been visited before. Well, I’m not sure any previous war movie had a real live lion as the group’s mascot but I could be wrong. Other than that, not much separates
Flyboys from the dozens of other generic war movies that preceded it.
It’s really only when the action takes to the air that the movie manages to lift off. The high-flying battle scenes would have benefited from less close-ups of the pilots while the fighting was underway and more shots framed from a distance, yet overall the dogfights are fairly engaging and the CG work is – with the exception of one or two small sequences – not distracting. That said,
Flyboys never pulled me in enough to make me feel like I was flying right alongside the pilots. I did grab the armrests a few times during particularly hairy maneuvers but too much of what appears on screen looked well-rehearsed, tightly choreographed, or shot in front of a green screen. There were no frenzied reaction shots and the sense of immediate peril wasn’t transmitted on the screen.
The Acting
James Franco’s Texas accent goes in and out but, strangely enough, that’s totally in keeping with how he plays the character. Sometimes he’s just a country boy caught up in events he’s unable to control, and other times he’s a well-honed fighting machine. Yes, he can display both traits over the course of the movie, but flip-flopping back and forth within scenes - or as the mood strikes - doesn’t make any sense.
The only actor spared from having to portray a one-dimensional cutout of a character is Martin Henderson as the group’s squadron leader. As ace pilot Reed Cassidy, Henderson's lucky enough to have a character arc over the course of the film that isn’t entirely predictable.
It’s tough tracking each of the supporting players because they’re under-developed as individual characters. No one in the supporting cast (with the exception of the aforementioned lion) stands out from the bunch. They’re entirely interchangeable. When one member of the group gets shot down, it’s impossible to feel anything because we’ve barely built up a relationship with these characters.
To Sum It All Up
Somewhere within Flyboys is a decent movie about a brave group of young men who risked their lives to fight alongside the French in WWI. Chop at least half an hour off the running time by deleting the totally unnecessary and yawn-inducing love story and Flyboys wouldn’t be half-bad. It's a shame the version being released theatrically just sputters along bogged down by a silly romance, when it’s really just the aerial acrobatics audiences want to see.
GRADE: C-
