Many critics will gladly point out that Tony Bill’s Flyboys is an old-fashioned film that’s far too romantic for our cynical world, riddled with far too many clichés. They’d be right. And yet I couldn’t help but be taken by this rousing adventure set in the World War I. It’s a simple story: Thirty-eight young Americans — some looking for adventure, some escaping their past — enlist in France’s fledgling flying corps to form the division known as the Lafayette Escadrille.
The flyboys include Blaine Rawlings (James Franco), a young Texan on the run from the law and the banker eager to foreclose on his ranch; country bumpkin Eddie Beagle (David Ellison); spoiled rich boy Briggs Lowry (Tyler Labine); African-American boxer Eugene Skinner (Abdul Salis); and glory-seeking William Jensen (Philip Winchester). They fall under the tutelage of Capt. Georges Thenault (Jean Reno) and the bitter and weary veteran Reed Cassidy (Martin Henderson).
The movie follows the tried-and-true formula: Greenhorns go through basic training, endure a trial by fire, and either become seasoned vets or die on the battlefield. Flyboys’ arena of warfare is in the air, and Bill and his crew bring it to vivid and violent life. Keep in mind, the life expectancy of a WWI pilot was as low as 21 days, and the film shows us why.
Although one would expect the action sequences to be done well, the most surprising element of the film is a moving love story that develops between Rawlings and Lucienne (Jennifer Decker), a young French girl trying to hold her tattered family together. The scenes in which these two try to overcome the language barrier that separates them and wind up falling in love in the process are among the most effective romantic moments to grace the screen since 2004’s The Notebook. There’s a degree of passion present here that effectively counterbalances the film’s moments of violence and provides something for everyone in the audience.
This article appears in Sep 14-20, 2006.
