BEFORE: Finally wrapping up the war chain - it's been a long, somewhat disturbing week. But then, I suppose the horrors of war are supposed to be disturbing - I guess I'd worry more about myself if I wasn't disturbed by it all.
Linking should be a snap, between two films with such large ensemble casts - ah, yes, Nicolas Cage was in "Birdy" with Matthew Modine (last seen in "Cutthroat Island"). Actually he was last seen at my job a few weeks ago, but that's another story - he's friends with my boss and he's done some voice-work for animated shorts, so he sometimes drops by. Nice guy.
PLOT: The "Memphis Belle" is a World War II bomber, piloted by a young crew on dangerous bombing raids into Europe. The crew only have to make one more bombing raid before they have finished their duty and can go home.
AFTER: Another serviceable WW2 film, maybe not as action-packed as "Windtalkers" was. It's a long flight from England to Germany on a bombing run, and though the flight is not without incident, it does leave long stretches of inactivity during the trip. Conversations between the airmen only go so far, after all. I did notice quite a bit of dialogue getting repeated, which is usually a bad sign - Modine's character mentions the "pickle-barrel" analogy twice, for example.
Certain conventions take over in a WW2 film - soldiers who mention their wives or girlfriends usually have a short life-span. They might as well be beaming down to an alien planet on "Star Trek" while wearing a red shirt. Characters talking about what they're planning to do after the war is another bad sign - because we're supposed to feel bad for those unrealized dreams. On top of all that, this is the LAST mission for the Memphis Belle plane - after 25 successful missions (and any landing you can walk away from qualifies as a success) the plane is retired and the crew gets sent home.
Now, I don't know if that's a Hollywood addition, or a general rule in the Air Force. Seems to me that if a crew works that well together and can fly that many successful missions, you'd want to keep them in action as long as possible. But that's not for me to say. Perhaps it's just a bit of dramatic irony - of course you wouldn't expect mission #25 to go smoothly, now, would you?
The airmen certainly don't - they try to exploit every bit of luck, from religious medals to their careful routines, to insure that they survive their final mission. And when a reporter shows up to do a profile piece on the lucky crew, well, they see that as the kiss of death. You don't tell a pitcher he's working on a no-hitter, and you don't take credit for Mission #25 until you've completed it...
There seemed to be a good amount of information about the inner workings of a bomber plane, and what it meant to go on a bombing run. At the same time, the film did a fair job of getting inside the soldier's heads, and also making them 10 different and distinct characters. All that can't be easy to juggle, from a filmmaking standpoint.
Also starring Eric Stoltz (last seen in "The Fly II"), Tate Donovan (last seen in "Nancy Drew"), Sean Astin (last seen in "Courage Under Fire"), Harry Connick Jr. (last heard in "The Iron Giant"), D.B. Sweeney, Billy Zane (last seen in "The Phantom"), David Strathairn (last seen in "Silkwood"), John Lithgow (last seen in "All That Jazz").
RATING: 6 out of 10 parachutes
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