Gunbus

Gunbus was the UK title of this film. Some trench scenes were filmed at Marston Mortaine in Bedfordshire (Disused LBC clay pits). I know this because I was an extra for some scenes - my one and only venture into the film world. But I was a mere dot on the screen and absolve myself of any responsibility for this dire, almost unwatchable attempt at comedy. 18 million dollars? Well, the catering was good.

I have not seen this film since its theatrical release, but for some reason I was reminded of it recently while viewing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). Both films had interesting concepts that made attempts at historical juxtaposition; both had big budgets for action sequences and special effects; both were ultimate failures. One memorable scene that did show some originality was a depiction of a World War I German "Gotha bomber" as much, much bigger that the real thing, complete with a spiral staircase, a large wheel as on an ocean-going vessel, and a formally-uniformed commanding officer standing on the bridge. I hope that whoever imagined this did go on to bigger and better things.

GUNBUS is a fun little British WW1 film featuring a couple of imported American leads who through various rather unbelievable plot twists end up joining a British suicide squadron in their plans to bring down a massive German airship. It starts out as a rather cheesy western in which the central twosome dynamite about a billion banks before they're suddenly in France and ready for action.

This rarely-seen film is rather inconsistent and seems to be suffering from choppy editing and huge budgetary constraints; the ending in particular is extraordinarily abrupt and just cuts to another random scene in an unappealing way. Saying that, I did get a kick out of GUNBUS, enjoying it in much the same way I enjoyed the similarly flawed BIGGLES made during the same era.

Scott McGinnis and Jeff Osterhage verge on the irritating rather than charismatic but there's a solid British cast to back them up, including the reliable Miles Anderson and Rodney himself, Nicholas Lyndhurst. Ronald Lacey is underutilised as a friendly German character. The movie was directed by Zoran Perisic, the Yugoslavian special effects guy who worked on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and SUPERMAN, and I suspect that directing wasn't really his calling. Still, there's plentiful action here, and the many aerial combat sequences, although cheesy, are good natured and most of all fun.

Not sure why nobody seems to like this movie. The acting is completely okay, the special effects are very 80s but not bad at all, and the story is that of a family-friendly adventure movie about two criminal but basically good-hearted rascals getting from one mess into the next. There's plenty of action as some more or less realistic WWI era aircraft (probably replicas) and several completely crazy, steampunk-like designs, for example an early 20th century car rebuilt as a double-decker airplane, shoot it out with an insanely huge German bomber airship that can launch rockets. Although one of the good guys dies in a bomb attack, which is presented as tragic, and it is implied, although not really shown, that others are shot down in their planes and probably die as well, there is nothing graphic or frightening being shown. It's basically about as violent and as scary as a Star Wars movie (which means not at all really), and much less so than Indiana Jones, for example. I didn't think it was particularly funny, although there were still a couple of scenes that made me laugh out. Which is about what you would expect considering that this isn't supposed to be a comedy but a light action-adventure movie. There's a whole lot of shooting and big explosions throughout the film. Movies like this (and Star Wars) were the reason why I had the misconception as a kid that wars were cool and exciting. I still grew up to become an utter pacifist, so I guess that's alright. I never saw Sky Bandits as a kid though and now is the first time I saw it or even heard of it, in my mid-fourties. Which is a shame really. I liked it now, but I really would have loved it when I was about 10.

As others have noted, this movie is filled with bad effects, flat acting and any number of other problems. Yet there are many moments where it seems like the movie might work. But just when things start to get rolling, the timing goes out and suddenly its the most boring thing you've seen.

Consider the opening. It starts with a bunch of fast action scenes of our heroic duo blowing up banks one after another in quick succession. One of these consists of nothing more than throwing a bundle of dynamite in the door, causing the entire building to explode into matchsticks. Dumb, but fun.

And then for no reason I'll ever understand, the next heist is shown in excruciating detail... this time they're drilling holes into the safe and setting up this elaborate system for pouring in nitro. I don't know how they managed to do it, but they dragged this scene on for minute after minute of excruciating nothingness as the two banter on mindlessly, setting themselves up all-too-obviously to get caught. The entire movie dies right there, the pace just kills.

And it keeps doing this, over and over. Then we're in Europe, where there's a bunch of fast scenes while they shoot down a bomber with their pistols and then fly off. An excruciating scene follows. And again, and again and AGAIN. Over and over it looks like they just might pull it off and save it, only to bore you to death seconds later.

Bizarre!