Flyboys (2006) Tony Bill

Production Budget: $60 million

Worldwide Gross: $17 million

Flyboys is based on the true life story (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) story of the Lafayette Escadrille. They were a group of American pilots who volunteered to fly for the French in World War I before the US entered the war. We follow a group of new recruits headed by Blaine Rawlings (James Franco) as they go through training and the early stages of the war. They are led by Capt. Thenault (Jean Reno) and are mentored by grizzy veteran Cassidy (Martin Henderson).

Yeah I’m not going to hammer the obvious point that you shouldn’t expect this to be some serious historical film about World War One aerial combat. Whenever you hear the words “Based on a true story” you should more think “six degrees of separation from the actual true story”. In this case, put all generic war stereotypes, add a sprinkle of Disney, and boil it in a WWI airplane flavor and you have Flyboys. This is another movie where all the characters should be named after their stereotype. So Hunky Protagonist is trying to be the ace of the squadron, but Grizzled Vet with a Heart of Gold keeps ragging on him. So Hunky becomes close friends with his fellow squad mates Burn Out, Dead Meat, Religious Stereotype, Sir Not Appearing in this Film, and Has no Dialog but is a Really Close Friend…Honest. Nothing about it is necessarily bad, but you can tell it is generic plot filler. It is actually quite funny when they try to tell what happened to the characters after the war and it doesn’t quite mesh with the tripe they fed us in the movie before. All during the movie we are given this romance between Blaine and a French girl and it is built up like they are destined to be together forever. And in the final text blurb they just throw out “and they never met again” hoping that we don’t notice.

The story also seems to lose focus of what it is trying to say. I saw the writers trying to push out the message that air combat was not some easy escape for people that didn’t want to serve in the trenches. This is not about magnificent men in their flying machines but a portable death trap. Cassidy is bitter because he knows the longer you fly the greater the chance is of you dying a horrible death (and your odds aren’t that good to start with). But it doesn’t help when for the most part our main characters do well and aren’t affected too much by the war around them.

Alright, enough bashing about the plot. We all know it is the bare essentials in order to move from one action scene to another. To the movie’s credit, I found the flying scenes to be the best part. The special effects were good and the scenes shot well enough that they put you in the middle of the dogfights. They were enjoyable although they certainly are not enough to recommend this movie to anyone.

The acting is pretty much bland all around. I won’t bash on Franco since I don’t think anyone could have made his material all that great. He tries his best, but it is just not a well written role. As much as I also like Jean Reno, you don’t see much of him either. You see him in about three scenes and none of them are memorable. The best actor and the person with the best role is Martin Henderson (who was in another bomb Battle in Seattle). I liked him in that movie and I found him charismatic in this movie as well. I kind of wish he would get out from box office bomb hell and get in a good movie. I say that, and looking at IMDb, I see I will probably be reviewing his latest bomb in Torque.

Overall, I can’t really hate on this movie. It is made competently enough with good action and alright acting. But the plot is so generic and there just isn’t anything special to make this movie stand out among all the other action movies out there. This will be a forgotten film (if it isn’t already) and justifiably so.