Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Paul Kydd Available on Blu-ray Disc (Region B)UK/France 1976 English (Colour); War/Drama/Action (EMI/Jacques Roitfeld); 114 minutes (PG certificate)Crew includes: Jack Gold (Director); Howard Barker (Screenwriter, adapting Play JOURNEY'S END by R.C. Sherriff ***½ [7/10] and Book SAGITTARIUS RISING by Cecil Lewis *** [6/10]); S. Benjamin Fisz (Producer); Gerry Fisher (Cinematographer); Syd Cain (Production Designer); Anne V. Coates (Editor); Richard Hartley (Composer)Cast includes: Malcolm McDowell (Maj. John Gresham), Christopher Plummer (Capt. "Uncle" Sinclair), Simon Ward (Lt. Crawford), Peter Firth (Lt. Stephen Croft), David Wood (Lt. "Tommy" Thompson), John Gielgud (Headmaster), Trevor Howard (Lt. Col. Silkin), Richard Johnson (Maj. Lyle), Ray Milland (Brig. Gen. Whale)BAFTA nomination: Cinematography"High above the trenches 14 days is a long life... This is the 15th day!"A naïve schoolboy (Firth) enthusiastically joins a WWI flying squadron in France, commanded by his idolised, former house captain (McDowell) - now utterly disillusioned and heavily reliant on alcohol - where he is told that life expectancy for new recruits is just two weeks.Primarily based on a 1928 play (set in the trenches and first filmed in 1930 by James Whale), the move from army officers on the ground to those in the air importantly maintains a sense of claustrophobia by having its several prolonged and impressively staged aerial battle scenes generally shot from the perspective of tiny, single-occupancy cockpits.It may be less thrilling but is equally moving on land.Blu-ray Extras: Interviews, Short Film, Restoration Comparison, Trailer. *** (6/10)

writers_reign I find myself in agreement with one of the people who reviewed this in these pages; I, too, have an aversion to Malcolm McDowell but am forced to concede that he was excellent as the self-aware, self-hating role model, what today we would describe as a poster boy for recruitment drives. Christopher Plummer was also excellent although the part was so well written he could have phoned it in. It's difficult to understand why they did not just film Journey's End as it stood, i.e. a story of infantry rather than airborne personnel but having opted for the change - and bizarrely changing the character's names, Stanhope, Raleigh, etc, despite hiring R.C. Sheriff to work on the screenplay and acknowledging the source material in the credits - they make a decent enough fist of it.

Jackson Booth-Millard I may not have paid the biggest attention to this film while it was on, but from what I did watch properly it was a good old fashioned film from director Jack Gold (Goodnight Mister Tom). Basically, it is World War I and the film focuses on the Royal Flying Corps. Flying fighter ace Maj. John Gresham (A Clockwork Orange's Malcolm McDowell) runs the base, and he has to deal with new recruits. There is some story of a particular new recruit, Lt. Stephen Croft (Peter Firth), but the film is dominated, and made fun to watch, by the many plane battles filled with roars, shooting and explosive crashes. Also starring The Sound of Music's Christopher Plummer as Capt. 'Uncle' Sinclair, Simon Ward as Lt. Crawford , Arthur's John Gielgud as Headmaster, Trevor Howard as Lieutenant Colonel Silkin, Richard Johnson as Major Lyle, Dial M for Murder's Ray Milland as Brigadier General Whale, David Wood as Lt. 'Tommy' Thompson, Christopher Blake as Lieutenant Roberts, Gilles Béhat as Captain Beckenauer, David Daker as Mess Corporal Bennett, Elliott Cooper as Lieutenant Wade, Barry Jackson as Corporal Albert Joyce, Jacques Maury as Ponnelle, Ron Pember as Lance Corporal Eliot, Johnny English's Tim Pigott-Smith as Major Stoppard and Jeanne Patou as French Singer. As I mentioned, the plane action is pretty much the only highlight of the film, well, and some familiar faces, but it's okay. It was nominated the BAFTA for Film Award Best Cinematography. Worth watching!

Theo Robertson First of all I feel I`ve got to point out the two flaws of ACES HIGH 1 ) The film starts with the commonly held erroneous view that young men of whatever nation joined the army because they`d been brainwashed by glorious tales of derring do and had no idea of the horror awaiting them in the trenches . Not so in Britain at least since The Times newspaper published the names of every British serviceman killed at this time . One edition in July 1916 published over 20,000 names of the men killed during the Somme offensive , so to insinuate that the boys at the school had somehow only had Gresham`s account of the war to fall back on is somewhat naive . This might have happened in 1915 but not so when this film was set towards the end of 1916 2 ) ACES HIGH is based on the play JOURNEYS END except it revolves around a plane squadron which means when the chaps are at the airfield everything feels a bit too stagey while when they`re up in the air there`s a distinct lack of drama since the cast are indistinguishble with their goggle clad faces and their lack of dialogue Having pointed out the flaws I can`t not mention the main strength and that`s the cast . Malcolm McDowell an actor I can`t usually stand at the best of times gives a superb performance as the bitter , cynical alcholic John Gresham . It`d be very easy for McDowell to give a very over the top performance ( Some might say that`s all he ever does ) but he`s both very convincing and disciplined here . Christopher Plummer is completely convincing as a paternal English officer ( Plummer was always good at this kind of role ) and Peter Firth - Despite being hampered with a character unsubtley written - is also good Considering the limited budget the technical aspects are impressive enough with the sometimes slightly obvious backscreen projection hardly bringing the film down . It`s an anti-war film so its heart is in the right place but like many an anti-war film it`s somewhat heavy handed ( As I imagine the source play was ) and the ariel scenes with their lack of dialogue means a somewhat over dramatic film in places and an undramatic film in other places Six out of ten