Squadron 303 - Luftschlacht um England

Box office hit in Poland with 1,200,000 admissions. I spent nice time in the cinema. Good entertainment. Good actors.

Occasionally the budget does leave it looking slightly tacky but the story and performances make it a worthwile watch and is certainly something that should be known by more.

For starters I was a military pilot for 24 years and have combat experience. The current lead review states that the combat scenes were "very amateurish" ... not true and I will wager that the reviewer has never engaged in air-to-air gunnery. I have ... and it looks just about like it was depicted.

Second ... this is a true story. I did a bit of research on the 303 and the movie depiction (except maybe for the social aspects) seems very true. 303 had a remarkable combat record.

The character development was OK. It conveyed the motivations of the key players. The thing that really dragged this movie down for me was the direction. Four languages are spoken: English, German, Polish and Russian. I have reasonable fluency in 2 of the 4 but I will wager that there are very few who do not need subtitles. The director cuts back and forth in location and time, often jumping several years. The jumps are revealed in a note on the left corner of the screen while at the same time you are trying to read fast moving subtitles. Too much work. Hard to follow. With better direction to avoid this random jumping, I would have rated this an 8.

All in all a good flick, well worth watching. And I thank the 303 for their heroic service in an unimaginably tough air war that really saved the world.

The plot unfolds out of sequence, very much in the style of Quentin Tarantino, and major characters are not introduced. But, for those who know the history of the period their role in the story is obvious. The flying scenes are mostly excellent and the true story gets a reasonable representation. Overall, it's well done and worth seeing.

Terrible writing and editing ruined what should have been a great story. The music at the end credits makes no sense either