Dois Heróis Explosivos

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.

My review was written in October 1986 after watching the film at a Times Square screening room.

"Sky Bandits" misfires on all cylinders. Meant as a rollicking World War I adventure, mishmash of a feature is missing a plotoline. Touted as the most expensive (production budget pegged at $18,000,000), indie British film ever, pic doesn't deliver the expected values on screen and has a no-name cast that won'[t help it attract attention domestically or overseas. Distrib Galaxy International has unwisely opted for a national saturation release.

Originally titled "Gunbus" (after the small fighter planes featured), Thom Keyes' unsatisfactory screenplay opens with a reel of two young heroes (Scott McGinnis and Jeff Osterhage) making like Butch Cassidy & Sundance (the early days, that is) in montages of bank robberies. Switch this pointless material headed nowhere the boys are suddenly sent to France to fight in the Great War against the dreaded hun.

Misadventures for the duo include a gam of one upmanship with haughty British flyers, a little sack time with two pretty mademoiselles (Valerie Steffen, Ingrid Held) and a mission to destroy a vast Graf Zeppelin the Germans are using for bombing runs. With dogfighter prowess picked up instantly (heroes decide to try piloting biplanes on a dare), they save the day and are subsequently back in the west blowing up banks quicker than you can say "Blue Max".

Film plods along episodically wit no forward momentum to the sotry: every once in a while there is a dissolve and a new scene has beguyn. Since Keyes' script lacks humor, the boring repartee between the two wooden heroes is downright deadly. What producer Richard Herland and director Zoran Perisic deliver is a succession of pretty but very fake-looking model plane shots or process shnots. The excitement of aerial dogfights, which have entertained audiences in hundreds of war films and served as the inspiration for "Star Wars" is missing.

Cast is tgruly awful, with the only familiar actor, Ronald Lacey, hamming it up and American leads McGinnis and Osterhage lacking the charisma this sort of yarn calls for. Production, including David Watkin's photography, is technically adequate but wholly lacking in verisimilitude. For all the money spent, it would have been more convincing to use stock footage left over from "Hell's Angels" The comic book approach doesn't work.

With Rank, ITC and Thorn EMI as recent examples, experienced British producers have learned how difficult it is to try and compete with the Americans via big-budget projects; modest efforts like "Gregory's Girl" and "My Beautiful Laundrette" have been more successful. "Sky Bandits" will undoubtedly reinforce this conventional wisdom.

When two cowboys are captured in the old west trying to rob a bank, they are exiled to the front lines of World War I to fight alongside the British. They get into a bet to see if they can fly a Gunbus, they do but then end up in another base under an officer who is determined to hunt down a German airship.

I taped this film on the basis of the catchy name (it was called Gunbus in the UK) and I didn't really know what to expect from it in terms of plot, action etc so my expectations were pretty low. Surprisingly my low expectations were never even met once. The plot jumps around from the old west to WWI with little explanation, before we know it, the heroes are flying missions on German aircraft (despite not being able to fly). The film gets sillier towards the end as cars, broken aircraft etc are pieced together for an attack from the British – it would be laughable if it wasn't so bad.

The effects are what you'd expect from a cheap film of this period – awful. The back projections of the sky spins all over the place and the little model planes just look daft. The action stutters simply because it is so silly. Like another reviewer said, some of the designs are imaginative and daring (the big airship for one) but the effects aren't up to the job and the action just makes the whole thing silly.

The acting is pretty poor and isn't helped by the total lack of characters in the film. The lead actors have a bit of banter between them at the start but they stutter as they get lost in the silly mess that comes about. The only interesting things in the cast are a couple of pretty women, some really, really poor English accents and an appearance by Nicholas Lyndhurst from Only Fools & Horses.

Overall this is a pretty poor film. I'm sure some users will see it as trashy fun but I only see it as trashy. It doesn't really have anything of value going for it and all you're left with is the cracks in the film.

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.

If ever there was a film needing a re-edit it's this one. It lurches awkwardly from one scene to the next with an air of making it up as it goes along. Which is a shame as within all its staleness there is a good film in there somewhere. Okay the acting from the two leads is bad and the dialogue they have to say is worse. There's an attempt to make them lovable rogues but they come across as objectionable idiots. Nonetheless the film is chock full of invention, excellent design and pyrotechnics. It just doesn't flow as it should. Not a bad film as such but could do better. Hence a re-edit would save its potential. BTW Gunbus is available on Amazon Prime but the transfer is awful; VHS picture and distorted sound. Terrific poster though.