Truly Dreadful Film

A Masterpiece!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The opening sequence shows a Spitfire in cloud and the radio is out. Struggling just to keep the plane upright the pilot literally stumbles into a German bomber which he takes a shot at.Flash forward to 88 year old Geoffrey Wellum standing on a small pier telling it like it was. "Of course I remember what it was like - how could you forget" Flashback to May 1940 and reporting to the Adjutant: "My name is Mac - fought in the last mess - how EXACTLY old are you son?" "Almost 19 sir" "Exactly how old?" "18 years and 9 months sir" After a hellish night at the pub getting hazed with booze by the other squadron members the next morning finds 'Boy' Wellum performing cockpit drill with the fitters who strap him in and let him take a first flight in a Spitfire.The adjutant and squadron leader watch the take off."God help us" The docudrama then follows Wellum - beautiful aerial footage cut with shots of the 88 year old Wellum describing how it felt.With minimal training the squadron leader calls him in and announces "You are to report for ops at First Light" - knowing that unless Wellum is extremely lucky - he has just handed out a death sentence "If you could survive three weeks - you had a chance of making it to six or longer". Casualties are wiped off the chalk board without comment. Mac the adjutant writes a letter.As ever - footage from the 1969 Battle of Britain movie is used for the mass aircraft scenes - but some digital remastering and new special effects give it some verisimilitude.On his first op Wellum gets a German bomber but only just makes it home with the remains of his Spitfire after getting jumped when fixating on his target.The constant strain of fighting through the summer of 1940 - smoking aircraft, the constant ring of the scramble bell, overturned chairs and chess pieces, his roommate slowly cracking under the strain are portrayed against the backdrop of period music.Based on Wellum's own book - a very personal account of his feelings, fears and a desperate desire not to let anyone down.

I wasn't really taken with this-we've seen it all before, done better elsewhere, when the vintage aircraft necessary to put the flying sequences together weren't quite so scarce (or valuable), and there was less reliance on SFX-the world has become a poorer place since the introduction of CGI. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what was missing from this production. The lead character, while not simply two-dimensional, gave nothing to quicken the blood. Even the 'scramble' scenes seemed slow and plodding, as though the actors were simply doing it by the numbers. Some of the action footage was unforgivably bad (as has been pointed out elsewhere, some of it was pinched from other films), and there was little in the way of back-story or characterization. The film wasn't improved by punctuation from the (fictional) lead character as an old man, analyzing his attitudes and feelings at the time... It was rather as though the cast felt as exhausted and bone-weary as the boys felt in 1941...All in all, I should say turn off the TV, and enjoy a good book like 'Sigh for a Merlin', or, re-watch one of the classics like "Battle of Britain" or even "633 Squadron", which convey that sense of urgency and derring-do far more convincingly-one last thing, another reviewer here has questioned whether the sound footage was really the real McCoy: I concur, a Merlin has a much denser, richer, raucous sound-these were obviously piston engines, possibly Merlin Is, but more likely Kestrels or Goshawks.

I'm not much for war movies. I watched this because I wanted to see some of Heughan and Lewis's earlier works. I was impressed with both actors performance. The movie wasn't so much about Spitfires as it was on the affects the fighting had on the pilots. It was well produced for a TV movie. Heughan does a great job playing the part of a young inexperienced Spitfire pilot. Lewis also performs well as the "father" to all the pilots. I like the voice-over inserted into the film of the actually pilot Heughan played. All in all it was a good TV movie. There s strong language so I would not recommend it for children under 16. It would be a good film for a hight school history class.

We all know the classic "the battle of Britain", the definitive movie about the British struggle to keep the Germans out of the UK in WWII. This has a lot of the same in it but then with bit's of narration from an actual pilot. It's reasonably played and in a way it's interesting to hear the actual pilot's comments in between the bits of movie. I just wish it the story was told in a more story telling way, it's too flat really. It's less about the actual flying and more about the physiological effects on the lead person, the combat stress. It's interesting to see that side but it misses a bit of something that makes the rating of this TV movie not as high as it could be. I don't claim to be a Spitfire connoisseur, but, the sounds of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine in the movie just does not sound right. I've heard them in real life at air shows and the famous Merlin engine has a much more growling sound, it's very unique in an engine sort of way, it's a symphony. If you are not too much into the history of WWII or airplanes or life of the pilots don't watch, you'll be bored. If you do are interested, watch it indeed, after all it's a real WWII hero that the story is about, and hero's they were, as in Winston's words, never have so few done so much for so many.