The Thundering 8th

I'm not sure but I think some of the scenes were real World War 2 footage. It looked like the film went from film to video, and the tint change between different angles of different scenes. Not sure why. Maybe it was done to try to make the real footage and story footage fit together better. However, in some scenes that were all story footage the tinting changed too. At first I thought maybe this was done because characters were borrowed from other films and merged in...but that wasn't the case. The tinting changes seemed distracting.

The story was average. Acting in parts could use some improvements -- it felt like acting rather than real people. Parts of it seemed a little stiff. The beginning seemed to start like Saving Private Ryan did (in a Arlington Cemetary) with Veterans looking on...and it's a flashback of a veteran thinking about his pilot experiences in World War 2 (However Private Ryan is a better film) But this is more an independent film and it's not fair to compare it to a big budget film.

I went to see this film because the director was in town and the event was for charity to raise money for the WW2 monument being built in Washington DC. I thought it was nice of the director taking his time and energy to put towards a good cause and for that he should be commended.

Also the director had a lot of parts in the movie..writer, producer, director, and actor.... It's probably hard to do everything good and someone who tries to do all these things certainly has a lot of initiative.

There are several famous actors from old TV shows in the movie. In particular Larry Wilcox (from Chips) and the woman who was the mother in Lost In Space are both in the movie. A few other TV actors are in the movie too.

Don Borza has a great love for his father, and wrote a screenplay to try to capture the adventures of Mr. Borza Sr.

It is an interesting story, however in need of major editing. Some of the movie was in sepia-tones (burnt yellow-cast) and that distracted from it's impact. Way too many old' stock Ariel combat scenes.

The one truly great acting job was from an unknown, Stephen Emmerling. He was so totally convincing, believable, and was a nugget in the otherwise slow action.

The roster of great actors does not serve the movie well, as the acting and directing are from, and about Don himself. Intimate scenes with his starlet were ineffective towards furthering plot. E for effort and L for love of his father, to attempt it with out Hollywood money.

With the now new Move out by Clint Eastwood, Flags of our Fathers; maybe Don will pull it back out, and dust it off, and make a great move! Jan Michael Vincent is less than what I remember his capability, in this one.