Wolf Hound

IN A NUTSHELL: Inspired by the real-life German special operations unit KG 200 that shot down, repaired, and flew Allied aircraft as Trojan horses, "Wolf Hound" takes place in 1944 German-occupied France and follows the daring exploits of Jewish-American fighter pilot Captain David Holden. Ambushed behind enemy lines, Holden must rescue a captured B-17 Flying Fortress crew, evade a ruthless enemy stalking him at every turn, and foil a plot that could completely alter the outcome of World War II.

THINGS I LIKED: There are some beautiful aerial shots and impressive cinematography. The first 25 minutes are exciting aerial acrobatics in the sky over German-occupied France.

Real WWII Period Aircraft featured in this film include a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, North American P-51 Mustang fighters, Supermarine Spitfire fighter, Hawker Hurricane fighter, North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, and Messerschmitt Bf 109 (ME 109) fighter. Not a single computer-generated plane is in the movie! That's impressive!

For aircraft destruction/explosion shots, detailed scale models were filmed and then further enhanced with Visual Effects, but no shot is 100% computer-generated.

To film the skydiving sequences after two weeks of prep, Luke Aikins and Skydiving Double Andy Farrington performed a total of 14 jumps with customized parachute rigs on their helmets in 2 shooting days for the film.

The handsome and buff cast members include James Maslow, Trevor Donovan, John Turk, Michael Wayne Foster, John Wells, Taylor Novak, Michael Parrish, Brian Heintz, and more.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: The plot is kind of silly with basically one American defeating a ton of Nazis and saving the day. The movie is said to be based on a true story, but I don't know enough about the actual history of these events to know how accurate the movie is.

The most compelling moments of the film are when we're up in the air with the dogfights.

It's pretty cliched and extremely melodramatic.

Some bad editing moments.

The movie is simply too long for what it offers.

Some of the accents aren't very good.

One-note characters with very clunky dialogue. Most of the dialogue is grumbled through clenched teeth.

Some of the action sequences and shoot-outs aren't very good. For example, the Nazis conveniently jump out to attack the Americans one at a time.

There are some really dumb lines like, "Oh man, this does not look good! What are we going to do?" Another line that is spoken quite a number of times is, "No, no, no!" The blood on people looks really fake.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: Explosions and destruction Bloody deaths with a high dead body count Some German is spoken without subtitles.

Torture is seen and heard.

THEMES: Persistence Patriotism Revenge WWII Jews and faith War

YouTube channel.

Wolf hound? You'll be the one howling with laughter at this thing. Come for the gigantic brass star of David pendants apparently all Jewish flight crew were issued. Stay for the big plastic swastika flag melting.

This flick ticks all the cliché boxes: We've got a creepy scientist who looks like a cross between the Nazi from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Gollum. We've got the now-obligatory Black soldier(s) and French resistance woman. We've got a guy yelling "nooo" when someone gets shot in slow motion, with the surrounding firefight thoughtfully remaining silent for a minute so dying guy can say his last words. We've got a big musclebound Nazi who strips down to his wifebeater for the big fight scene. We've got a guy saying "This ends now" and "Let's finish this."

We've got so much modern language going on ("brainstorm"? Really?), that you expect the evil commandant to bust out a "Hashtag Jews be bad, yo."

Four stars for the story managing to hold together and for the effort the Nazi officers put into sucking in their cheeks to have cheekbones.

Simply don't set any expectations and you'll make it through. It's a bit tough to chew on, but it's edible. The cover of the movie is perhaps the key feature. The actors do what they need to do to get paid and meh they pumped out a film.

In the 60's, I read many biographies and autobiographies of pilots and soldiers. At the time they were in their late 40's to mid 50's.

Anyone who knows ANYTHING about WWII aircraft, air combat, and tactics knows that this movie is PUTRID.

The high ratings come from those who must be both very young, and ignorant.

In the real world KG 200 did a lot of special operations and had to check all enemy planes for the Luftwaffe. Of course these machines had no ammo or bombs, as the german types (mostly) did not fit into the guns or suspensions. Testing was mostly for weak/strong spots and maneuverability to guide own pilots, they were never used for attack missions. Planes had german markings and huge yellow wingtips and lower surfaces, so german AA guns won't shoot at them.

Well, in this movie they use a huge number of restored, real original aircraft, and all aerial shots are perfect and beautiful. But of course, all planes are different types except for a pair of P-51, and the storline uses them in an unrealistic way.

Two things may spoil your experience: First the lack of equipment and locations urges the story into outright stupid directions. Every car, uniform and weapon is different, the prison is in the hangar, and fuel barrels are stacked everywhere. Announcements of top secret informations are done over loudspeaker.

Second, and this killed the movie for me, the americans are sort of video game avatar, so they have to kill a lot of NPCs and some bosses, with predicable results.