Sky Bandits

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.

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.

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.

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.