Burning Blue

It may be the time of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' but a whole lot in the Armed Services haven't got the message. They're still on a seek and eliminate mission as we see in Burning Blue.

Trent Ford and Morgan Spector are a pair of Top Gun type pilots who are also married and quite secretly gay. Assigned to the same unit they fall for each other. There seems to be so many in the Navy that are gay one wonders if they all disappeared tomorrow how that might effect the security of the nation.

But eliminate them is the mission of Michael Sirow of NCIS and don't kid yourself if you're a fan of the television series. NCIS in the bad old days did indeed conduct 'investigations' to find gays in the military. Sirow takes a pair of plane crashes among the pilots and turns it into a witch hunt.

Ford and Spector have a lot to lose, they're both from traditional military families, their fathers are admirals. It's beyond the pale and impossible that these All American fighter jocks are queer.

Burning Blue is a fine drama about days that are hopefully behind us. The mere fact that the military apparently cooperated in the making of this film indicates as much. A fine ensemble cast plays this one from the heart. Definitely try and see this one.

No spoiler alerts here! To my mind... OK here are my bug bears: - Not clear for first half hour which decade the film is set. This may have been intentional to suggest timeless values of camaraderie, betrayal, taboo and forbidden love. If so then well done but not clear - Whether its editing, direction or script, the character development is done but not the relationship leaves too much too the power of suggestion and imagination. It's clear to me that someone with a conservative agenda edited out anything that might have been too salacious for its time. The power of suggestion? Meh... - The audience is clearly intended to be wider than just LGBT. But how many non military people will search for a film if not LGBT? Am guessing they were thinking of immediate box office success - how successful was it in the end? As an LGBT film it falls short. OK here are the things I like: - The story itself -The actors (yeah!) - The use of an external figure investigating which uncovered the facts - but not the important ones such as the reasons for the "mishaps"- interesting - The idea of 'blowing off steam' while on shore leave gave the characters time to explore their identity - The courage of one individual to stand up to the organisation and defend himself and the truth... did I understand the story was based on a true one? All in all well done 4* just pity about the need to 'not offend' mainstream audiences...

What a surprise...underneath the corny top gun look is a touching story. The best part is that you feel the longing and the distance between the two men.

I certainly wouldn't consider this movie to be a great film but I liked it and am glad I got a chance to see it.

It has always seemed to me that a surprising number of the negative reviews that I read at IMDb fall into two categories. The first is that the movie was not a movie that the reviewer wanted to see, and the second that the movie wasn't made in the manner that the reviewer would have made it. Keeping that in mind I would caution anyone thinking of seeing this that it is NOT a feel good story of 'coming out' in the military. In fact I don't think that I would even characterize it as a gay movie. I would say that it is first and foremost about the military itself and more particularly about the anti-gay witch hunts that were commonplace in the military for decades. It clearly is made from the point of view that these witch hunts had a negative impact on everyone involved, including the military itself. Consequently, there are going to be people who dislike this movie because they despise the idea of gays in the military. In other words, this is not a movie they wanted to see..... ever..... and they don't want you to see it either.

This is a movie about a bunch of guys having a jolly old time flying, and incidentally crashing, very expensive fighter planes during a time of supposed 'peace'. It wouldn't appear that any of them have any doubts about the nature of their sexual orientation. They are the kind of straight dudes that can cavort around naked, even get raunchy and physical with each other without seeing it as really sexual at all. The investigation that becomes central to the film actually comes about because of how they are doing their job; their negligence and dishonesty. If there is one thing that unites them it is the necessity of covering up their screw-ups, and this attitude goes all the way up to the highest command level. To the reviewer who complained that more than 30 minutes at the beginning of the film were devoted to "exposition and character development" I would suggest that, no, this was the actual film. It just wasn't the film you wanted to see. (By the way, I also might mention to the reviewer who complained "It was so hard to follow. Couldn't tell if a day went by, a month, a year or many years" that, in the print I saw at least, the years and locations of each segment were clearly written on the screen. Perhaps you just were too lazy to read them. That could also be why you mistakenly thought it "represented the 1950's")

I have to say that I personally did not particularly enjoy the 'top gun' style antics of these guys. I have a low opinion of the movie "Top Gun" because it helped people get over sour memories of the Vietnam debacle, not a bad thing in itself, but unfortunately I believe it made it easier for us to be led us into the First Gulf War, which many people in this country found to be highly enjoyable and uplifting, but then, again, into the Second one which was 'fun' to watch on TV at first but then not nearly as much fun as it dragged on and on...... like Vietnam. On the plus side, it didn't seem to me that any of the main characters here were portrayed as heroes, except perhaps the one who walks away. Most are easy on the eyes, and I have to hand it to them, they were able to get stinking drunk in their studly white uniforms without spilling a drop.

I think it is fair to point out that "Burning Blue" has what might be considered to be problems with continuity and clarity but I recently saw "Breathless", a movie often found in critic's top ten all time lists, and it was considerably more incoherent and less clear than this film. "Breathless" jumps all over the place. But as one highly respected critic has said, that represents: "the meaninglessness of the time interval between moral decisions." Huh??? If a defining moment here in a crucial scene slips by us unnoticed could it be because the individuals involved initially would prefer to pretend it never happened? And then, for reasons both personal and legal, that turns out to be a rather difficult to accomplish.

This movie reminds me somewhat of Top Gun. Wanting to the best at flight, relying on your mates and trying to hide faults / deficiencies.

This movie was beautifully shot considering locations / sets. With the blessing of the USN it tackled a subject which is til this day still a source of anguish for many current and former service persons in all branches of our military and life in general. The development of the character relationships was just OK in that you get the connection but it was lacking a certain dynamic. The struggles of the main characters against the discriminatory system in the US Armed Forces, their families, friends and themselves is evident and well acted but again, something in the writing / development was lacking. Thankfully there wasn't many of the typical gay clichés in this movie.

On a completely selfish note, while many the gay themed movie has gratuitous nudity and one sex scene after another. I'm kind of disappointed at the one "nude" scene there was. Not what I would've wanted or expected considering the main characters and theme. Again, completely selfish observation on my part though...I'm allowed :)