Flashing, flying fight scenes, scandalous conspiracy theories, sticky race relations, and don't forget that love twist. All in a day's work for Flyboys and big-name James Franco, who leads a largely-unknown cast.
Set in a flying base in Verdun, France, this movie is based on the true story of the first fighter pilots in World War I, the Lafayette Escadrille.
As the movie begins, the star pilots are introduced as each leaves his hometown. There is rich, upper-class William Jensen who is leaving his sweetheart and a family history of war heroes behind; Briggs Lowry, the screw-up who has embarrassed his father and wants only to shoot one German in order to satisfy him; Eugene Skinner, the black man who wants to fly because no one can judge him if they can't see him. ... However, the true hero of the story is Blaine Rawlings, James Franco's character, who goes to France after his family's Texas ranch is foreclosed and the police issue a warrant for his arrest.
Once the characters and their clichéd niches are introduced, they meet at the air base and are gruffly informed by their captain, Thenault (Jean Reno, of The Da Vinci Code), that the eager pilots will train, train and train to become the first to fly a new model of fighter planes. It's time for the fun to begin! But which plot twist to start with?
Looking for a date movie? When Rawlings and Beagle, a novice flyer, are training, they crash behind a whorehouse, where Rawlings meets Luciana, an innocent brunette who turns out not to be a prostitute. Rawlings does everything he can to charm her, including rescuing her from invading Germans. Despite his best efforts, Luciana does not meet him in Paris after the war, although she promises him she will.
Perhaps you're in the mood for a good ole mystery? Beagle, the one American pilot who didn't receive an introduction in the beginning, generates questions after he a) fails to shoot any Germans; b) receives no mail from home and c) knows a suspicious amount about German aircrafts. However, far from being surprised, several of the higher-ups already knew and leave the decision to discharge up to the squad. After a brief huddle, Rawlings announces (surprise!), they demand that he stay.
Of course, if you're just in the mood for a fun, historically accurate war movie, Flyboys offers all the necessaries. Relations between Lowry and Skinner, the black man, are tense after the men are assigned the same bunk and Lowry announces, "It would be like sleeping with one of my servants." (Don't worry, Rawlings takes one for the team and rooms with Skinner.) Once both men fight alongside one another, Lowry offers him a glass of his 100-year-old Louis XIII and apologizes. There's also Reed Cassidy, played by Martin Henderson, the shady but inspiring squadron leader, who teaches Rawlings that nothing is more important than avenging your lost friends. After the evil "Black Falcon" shoots down Cassidy, Rawlings goes back and defeats him.
In essence, this film had potential. Based on a true story, it really could have done more character analysis and stuck to one or two main plots, rather than introducing a twist only to complete it in minutes. The score was in the typical war-movie style and the scene where the new planes fly out of the foggy morning was just too much of a cliché. Unfortunately, few respectable war movies have been released after Saving Private Ryan; Flyboys is a repeat of Pearl Harbor, leaving me convinced that a Friday night is better spent writing my anthropology paper.
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