The subject this film is based upon has no much potential for making a first class, exciting and meaningful product, but here it fails to live up to what might have been. One of my favorite documentaries is "Flying the Secret Sky", dealing also with shuttling desperately needed bombers to England. It features interviews from the actual pilots, while being a documentary I give it a 9, heads above "Above and Beyond" which I rate as a 3. It could have been a good picture but it suffers mightily from HORRIBLE dialogue and abysmal casting. Attempts to build sexual tension between the airport tower controller and the female lead, who left rural Newfoundleand for Montreal, but now she's unhappily forced to return to work closely with her ex steady, fall flat. The way she deals with the ex and with her nasty, uber controlling, mother just seem clumsy and unrealistic. The bratish and very corny dialogue doesn't help. In some ways the screenwriter feels the need to educate the viewer by illustrating the characters quirks over and over, laboriously. as if the audience has an average IQ just above an orange. Lord Beaverbrook is a lecherous old man who likes to hang up on a caller who is begging for clarification in order to carry out an assignment. We get to see him preform the little trick time after time. The RAF project director who is on the opposite end of the phone is as sullen and wooden as a cigar store Indian, a completely unpleasant character. We see Beaverbrook buttoning up after bedding a secretary a bit too often, WE GET IT. The female lead is a pitiful actress who spits out the predicable and simplistic lines like a 3rd grader in a school play, with a bitchiness that doesn't work. Her appearance, this is a 3 hour film after all, is distracting, she is a combination of Olive Oyl. with Clark Gable Asian Elephant ears, playing the role of a sex- tease with is supposed to be drop dead beautiful and unresistable, twisting the boys around her pinkie finger. The part calls for a Julie Roberts-type, we get Popeyes main squeeze, instead. Avoid this little mini-series, the lines will put you in a stuper, the characters are distracting and very unlikable. If you wish to delve into the topic get a copy of Flying The Secret Sky, it's exciting and keeps you glued to the screen, the real life pilots are charming, humble despite their accomplishments having shown extraordinary courage. Because I love flying and I've studied WW II extensively I wanted to like this movie but I found I couldn't just watch it and relax letting myself be entertained. Everyone is PO'ed at each other, their words snotty without a glimmer of wit. If I never see the female lead in another project, I will be grateful. Folks don't quit your day jobs, you'all can't write, direct or act.
Review of Above and Beyond
