Lancaster Skies (2019)

 

Recently, I lamented the lack of good bomber movies and I gave a good review to a horror movie masquerading as a bomber movie -  "Shadow in the Cloud".

            Why are there so few good bomber movies?  We have a ton of submarine movies, but few movies focusing on bomber crews.  A bomber has similar confined quarters that add to the tension we see in sub movies.  You have a pilot  and co-pilot so you seemingly could have the command dysfunction that sub movies are noted for.  An advantage a bomber movie should have is it’s easier to intertwine home front scenes and thus romances.  I am going to assume that one drawback of bomber movies would be the need to heavily use CGI.  There have been a few decent bomber movies over the years, such as “The War Lover” and “Memphis Belle”, but they have been few and far between.  Actually, far and away the best bomber movie is the documentary "The Cold Blue".  That’s why when a new one comes out, I look forward to seeing it.  “Lancaster Skies” was released in 2019 and is a British film.  You would think the Brits would be committed to getting this subject right.  However, the film was low budget and made less than $100,000. 

            Douglas is a RAF fighter pilot who gets transferred to bombers.  We’re not told why, although that seemingly would be an important reveal.  Our first inkling that the film is low budget is when we meet the bomber crew in the smallest pub in England.  When Douglas arrives, he is greeted with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.  It’s unclear why, but then in his first trip to the mess, suddenly they are friendly.  So, who cares?  This establishes the template of pub-mess-pub-mess…  There’s lots of smoking to remind us that’s it’s the 1940’s (or that this is England.)  It takes a while to get to the first mission.  They put their masks on at takeoff.  Apparently the oxygen level on the runway was low.  Or is British fog hard to breath?  They tangle with some Me-110s.  The flak and noises are decent.  The models are a nice change from poor CGI.  Unfortunately, there is not much there there.

            I had read good things about “Lancaster Skies” and being an aviation movie fan I was looking forward to it.  I shouldn’t have been.  I’ll give it credit for sincerity and it is dedicated to the bomber crews.  But I have to feel the movie lets those veterans down.  I can’t believe they see much that they can relate to here.  The plot is boring until the mission.  That one mission is the best part of the movie, but it does not compensate for what comes before.  There’s a half-ass romance that makes you wonder why more air time wasn’t substituted.  Not to mention a lame boxing match that is thrown in to kill time.  Douglas is given a murky back-story involving his dead brother that just makes you scratch your head as to how this motivates him.  However, let me emphasize that I didn’t care anyhow.

            “Lancaster Skies” should be sued by Lancaster bombers for besmirching the name of one of the iconic bombers of WWII.

GRADE  =  D