Lancaster Skies - Gemeinsam für die Freiheit

It's so awful. It's like some 12 year old wrote it, particularly the scenes where they are squabbling about rank and the endless saluting. This appears to have been written by someone who doesn't understand at all. The RAF is hierarchical but not in the way that an officer strolls into the sacred Sgts Mess and demands salutes.... grow up. This annoyed me so much. I can forgive the basic scenery etc but not such crap dialogue

Stumbled across this movie and very soon realised it was battling with a very low budget and, in all honesty, not the world's most inspiring writers. Firstly, in a desperate efort to try and create the image of the 1940s, the camera crew have been seemingly told to get as close as possible to the actors as they can, lest they capture something that has to be edited out. The result is an almost comedic high close up of the actors in every scene. It also becomes noticeabe after a while that this is indeed a strange squadron that seems to only have one bomber crew as there are several scenes in the mess hall but not another member of any other crew in sight. Instead this solo crew share their airbase with four WAFs and a sergeant. Pretty incredible really when, quite late in the film, the squadron board suggests this base should be heaving with all the noise and human traffic of thirty bomber crews. Perhaps every crew had their own individual mess, each staffed with four WAFs. It appears they may also have each had their own individual pub too. Either that or the other twenty-nine crews were sworn tee-totalers. The story is okay but the extremely close camera work, uninspiring dialogue, pedestrian plot and lack of the neccessary extras to make them feel like they're on a busy air base really do deliver a generally poor quality movie. It gradually becomes hard to put this down to a lack of finances. I can honestly say I've seen better productions created by university students for Youtube, albeit their efforts aren't feature length.

A mixed bag with a good subject, music and sound, but also some painfully slow pacing, stiff acting performances and far too little action. The few good performances seemed the exception. This suffers from poor writing, direction and abysmal editing. Barely worth watching.

Took a punt on Sky. Script was a bit hit and miss, can't argue, but I read this film was made for 80 thousand pounds so I'm giving leeway.

Was hoping for more plane and war, to be honest. However, despite the poster mis sell I did find it fairly engrossing. 2 lead characters were good and the rest of the cast played there parts well. Undeserving of some of the criticism if you ask me, but I do understand the misgivings. At least it's not a studio remake - and well done for getting it done and being brave enough to focus on the people.

The crew is to be commended for producing such a low budget film successfully, but my main problem was with some errors which anyone who served in the RAF would find unacceptable. I realize that there aren't too many veterans of WW2 around, but surely someone in the crew had an elderly grandfather around who could have given advice, or there must be books detailing correct procedure. I served in the RAF 12 years after the end of WW2, and can still remember the rules and pecking order.

The two main problems I had were with the saluting, and the fraternization. Officers of equal rank did not salute each other, and one did not salute unless wearing a hat, or beret. No one went outside with the head uncovered, and hats were not worn indoors. Thankfully, the saluting did not generate to the sloppy American style of brushing the fingertips across the eyebrows, at least they got that right. Officers and other ranks did not fraternize off duty. It was not allowed, nor could officers use the sergeants' mess on a casual basis. I have not got to the insignia of rank, but you get the idea. Many period films today, it appeared tohave been made by people who were not born for another 50 years. At least they did not make the common mistake of the characters, including women, using four letter words, and leaping into bed on the first date.

Perhaps I am being pedantic, and unfairly picking apart a film dedicated to the tens of thousands of heroic men and women who served and died in the war, but a little research would have made a big difference.