Memphis Belle
Year: | 1990 |
Studio: | Warner Bros |
Director: | Michel Caton-Jones |
Cast: | Matthew Modine, Eric Stolz, Sean Astin, Harry Connick Jr, D B Sweeney, Billy Zane, David Strathairn, John Lithgow |
Some good effects and visuals give this ho-hum drama about a wearied squadron of air force pilots some extra kick, but like many of its kind, you more or less quietly enjoy the drama waiting for the next battle sequence.
You get a fairly good idea who's going to die according to the Movie Characters playbook, but the result is a collection of photogenic boys on a dangerous mission for freedom and liberty.
On the verge of being able to go home the boys discover they're been signed up for one last mission, the firebombing of Dresden. It's a little too late in history to capture the boys-own adventurism of (for example) Where Eagles Dare, it has to contain the requisite anti-war message of innocents dying rather than the gleeful eradication of filthy Nazis or Japs.