Dec 19, 2009 01:57 PM
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This movie is based on true story in which few young Americans went to France and joined in Lafayette Escadrille flying squadron during World War I and fought against Germans before the US joined the fight. The Lafayette Escadrilles men were trained to fly and flew missions against Germans and helped to stop the advancement of Germans into France in the early stage of war.
James Franco who plays the leading role as Rawlings with other guys meet up the Escadrilles leader Captain Thenault played by Jean Reno the only familiar face in the movie. It’s more like a suicide mission and they’ve been told the average lifespan of a pilot is about 3-6 weeks.Then they were given pilots flight training in short period of time.
After that, their real missions begin. Their first mission is a bust when they are ambushed by the Germans, but with each following mission, the pilots improve. After awhile, they begin to earn the respect of the more seasoned pilots. As their missions continue, some of the pilots are killed and replaced by new members with their own unique personalities. Rawlings meets a pretty French girl after he crash lands during a training mission. Rawlings is taken with her, and tries to build a relationship with her. She is afraid of getting too attached to him, afraid that he's going to be killed in combat, but eventually she agrees.
The Germans are the Escadrilles' enemies. The Germans planned to bomb Paris and they move towards Paris, our guys successfully intercept and destroy the Zeppelin bombers and other planes. Then the Germans enter the girl’s village and Rawlings rescues her and her brother’s kids out of the village. Then she leaves for Paris for the safety of her brother’s kids.
The Lafayette Escadrilles men were assigned to bomb a German arm depot which they carry out successfully. The Black Falcon is the real "bad guy" in the movie. Final fight was between the German Black Falcon guy and Rawlings which was really superb.
The real photo of Lafayette Escadrille flying squadron photo was shown at the end of the movie. Rawlings went to Paris in search of the girl but failed to find her and returned to USA.
The highlight of the movie is high flying battle scenes. Some of the hairy maneuvers did make us to grab the seat a few times. The flight scenes are exciting, tense and realistic. The edgy flight shots and stimulating biplane battles make Flyboys a good movie. Also, the sound effects and editing are fantastic. The close ups seemed a little fake but the tactics seemed really good.
*Flyboy is* a decent movie about a brave group of young men who risked their lives to fight alongside the French in World War I. The story is well told and the acting is solid. A love story in between made the film bit lengthy however by seeing the aerial acrobatics one will forget the few unnecessary things in the movie.
