Flyboys

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This article is about the 2006 film named Flyboys. For the 2003 book, see Flyboys: A True Story of Courage.

Flyboys
Movie Poster for Flyboys
Directed by	Tony Bill
Produced by	Dean Devlin and Marc Frydman
Written by	David S. Ward
Starring	James Franco Martin Henderson Jean Reno Jennifer Decker David Ellison Tyler Labine
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	September 22, 2006
Running time	140 minutes.
Country	United States
Language	English French
IMDb profile

Flyboys is a 2006 drama film set during World War I. Starring James Franco, Martin Henderson, Jean Reno, Jennifer Decker, David Ellison and Tyler Labine. It was directed by Tony Bill and Written by David S. Ward, based on an original screenplay by Phil Sears and Blake Evans

Before the film's release, it was heavily criticized by movie-goers as stating that the United States was the first country to fly, despite not joining the war until late. However, the film points out that the Lafayette Escadrille consisted mostly of Americans in 1916.

Shot on location in the United Kingdom in Spring 2005. The film's trench scenes were shot in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the same location of Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. The film was financed privately outside the standard Hollywood studio circuit by a group of filmmakers and investors including producer Dean Devlin and pilot David Ellison, son of Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, they spent more than $60 million of their own money to make and market this film.

The Nieuport 17s featured in the film were built by Airdrome Aeroplanes, an aircraft company based outside of Kansas City, Missouri.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Reaction
4 Quotes
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie follows several members of the Lafayette Escadrille, American pilots who volunteered to fight in the French Air Service, the Aéronautique Militaire, during the First World War prior to America's entrance into the war.

A group of young Americans go to France, for different personal reasons, to fly for the Allies in World War I. During the training period, the film mostly follows their personalities and developments; later, the focus shifts to the art of the aerial dogfight. Themes of revenge and love are also explored. The film ends with an explanation of what happened to each character - the movie was based on fact - except, of course, the ones who died.

There are many historical inaccuracies; for instance, the Fokker Dr.I triplanes shown were not used until later in the war, and the Fokker tri-plane was not used in quantity as depicted in the film; they were never in widespread use and were often structurally unreliable. Also, only a handful of Fokkers were painted in red (Manfred von Richthofen's was the most notorious). They were used in the film because they were very distinctive and easy to tell from the Nieuport 17 biplanes used by the American pilots. Additionally, there are some details about the engines and armament which are subtly inaccurate.

[edit] Cast

David Baggs
Mitchell Edwards
Clay Roul
James Franco
Martin Henderson
Jean Reno
Jennifer Decker
David Ellison
Tyler Labine
Philip Winchester
Stephen Bush
Todd Boyce
Michael Jibson

[edit] Reaction

A screenshot showing (from left to right) Clay Roul,David Baggs,Mitchell Edwards ,

Reviews of the film were largely mediocre. The Rotten Tomatoes web site, as of September 25, 2006, gave it a "rotten" rating with only 30% positive reviews.[1] Google Movies provided an average rating of 2.6 out of 5 as of Nov 13, 2006. Critics did however credit the film for the high quality of the action sequences in the air.

The movie opened fourth at the box office with a gross of $6 million.[2] On December 26, 2006, Variety named it one of the ten biggest box office flops of the year, citing an estimated shortfall of $90 million.[3]