Hurricane - Luftschlacht um England

One group of mostly unsung heroes are the international pilots who served with the British during WWII. In the case of "Hurricane" most of these pilots are Poles....Polish pilots who escaped to Britain after the fall of Poland in 1939. And, in some ways this film is a nice tribute to them and their heroism. I say 'in some ways' because sometimes the film is very good....and sometimes the writing is pretty insufferable. Too often, the men fight, argue and act in ways that the Poles couldn't have acted....and it felt so much like it was controversy and the like just for the sake of controversy in the film. And, it's all way overly melodramatic and ham-fisted. The men deserved better than this.

Watch this movie. The total budget was likely what was spent just for catering a 'skyscraper' movie I wasted a few hours watching. I AM an aficionado of WW2, I can spot mistakes. AND? The story of these brave men is not well known - a pity. There were several groups of pilots from several occupied countries who made it to Britain and fought like lions. The poles, were brave - and nuts. Some of the crazy scenes - are true (not a spoiler). The effects - yah, not up to Hollywood top CGI, but, enjoy a true story with good acting,

Thank god the Polish fighter pilots were there to help us win the war, don't know if Britain would have survived without the 303 Squadron. They stopped the Nazis invading us!

Its amazing how a handful of pilots turned the war.

It's 1940 and France is about to fall. Polish fighter pilot Jan Zumbach (Iwan Rheon) steals a plane and escapes to England. He joins a group of international fliers eager to fight the Nazis and resists being relegated to the bombers. Witold Urbanowicz is one of the first Poles allowed to fly a fighter plane. Eventually, they are allowed to form the legendary No. 303 Squadron. Phyllis Lambert works in the RAF war room.

This starts out well. The story of the Polish fliers is compelling. Not everything is the best. The CGI aerial dogfights are not the highest quality. There are some tangential plot elements that muddle the story. It's not unexpected to have a racist British officer in this movie but it pushes every villainy onto him by making him a sexual harasser. He goes off the deep end unnecessarily. The short flashbacks are fine to lay down the groundwork for their motivations but they need to be longer to fill out their stories. As a traditional war movie, this is fine but nothing special.

As mentioned elsewhere, the Poles deserve better than this - many of the CGI kills were highly improbable - tailplanes don't just blow up - there's no fuel down there.

That said, it is worth a watch. A better film in this genre is Dark Blue World, but it revolves around Czech pilots with real spitfires.....