Absolutely one of the best aviation movies of all times on so many levels. Hardware junkies will drool over the largest single massing of flyable Spitfires outside of a Battle of Britain reenactment. No less than eight flying Spits are on hand for very accurate ground and air sequences.Those that marvel over the lore of flying and get misty-eyed reciting High Flight will identify with the central characters' reverence for the freedom of being fast, free and high in their Dark Blue World. Be warned: romantics and even dog lovers are treated to a very emotional ride in this movie. The core message is one that is shared by many war vets, in that their finest hours, their period of life when they felt most alive, was in fact during the war when everything else is sad and gray.The plot concerns Czech pilots who escape from their country when the Nazis invade and join the RAF Free Czech Squadron. There are a few subplots, all of which are worth careful attention. This is just a plain old excellent movie that even the most ardent anti-hardware romantic will love (keep the Kleenex on hand). Beautiful photography, first-rate acting, accurate details of RAF life during the Battle Of Britain. Easily a candidate for any aviation enthusiast's personal DVD collection.

I was "turned on" to this movie by my flight instructor and now I wonder how the heck it was out there for nearly five years before I finally discovered it. If you have any love of flying at all, especially an attachment to the planes of WWII, this is an absolute must see, vastly superior to the pathetic "Pearl Harbor" and up there in rivalry with the famed "Battle of Britain" filmed more than thirty years ago. There are moments when you feel as if you are flying wingman, literally dodging the shell casings of your leader as you roll in on a Me 109 or He 111. As an historian this film deeply touched me as well for it is about the plight endured by tens of thousands of gallant Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks and Czechs who in 1939-1940 fled their homelands, made it to England, fought with utmost bravery for the survival of western civilization, and then were so callously abandoned by "us" after the war when they were arrested by the communists upon their return to their native lands. I have stood atop Monte Cassino in Italy and was moved to tears by the cemetery for the Polish troops that stormed that mountain that British and Americans could not take. I have traveled as well to Prague (the most beautiful of cities) and studied their history. Their story of abandonment, I believe, should be a lesson to us even today about obligations to gallant allies. But back to the film. If you love flying, see this. If you are interested in the aircraft of WWII most definitely see it. Without doubt the most brutal, direct, and frightfully swift air combat scenes ever replicated for film. And yes, if you even are seeking a touching romance, there is that as well in heartbreaking detail.Bill Forstchen Professor of History Co-owner of a WWII replica "warbird" P-51 Mustang "Gloria Ann"

A nation cannot be a nation unless it has an identity. These days that identity is at least found in and often generated by movies, especially war movies.Also, if a nation has a mature identity, you will see it in the nature of the movie: how it is constructed, what makes it unique to that land.That said, this is a huge disappointment. It is, in effect a British film from start to finish in its cinematic values, in its notion of the world, even the bag of clichés it draws from. Except it is partially set in the Czech Republic and features a few men from that land.If you go to Poland, you will see films that are uniquely Polish. The noir is closer to the human than anywhere else and the notion of intrinsic beauty is more pure.If you go to Scandinavia, Spain, France, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan you can see unique values in their native films even when they try to emulate each other. Even when — especially when — they are bad or hackneyed or distinctly genre films.Why not the Czech Republic? They have a heavy defeatism, a sort of fatal inferiority complex that has charm, sort of what Northern European Jews had before the war. Jan Svankmeijer captures this in his quirky shorts. This movie does insofar as the story. But stories don't matter. The tone of the thing is a chipper British buddy movie in every cinematic value.Much has been made about the authenticity of the aerial sequences. I guess they are accurate. But they don't thrill a bit, even when participating in a crash. Now here was a great opportunity for a unique vision, a way of shaping fate in three-D space to conform to Prague Gloom.But no. Cinema seems to have passed through Prague on its way elsewhere without stopping.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

In addition to being a drama, this film gives a rather nice account of the Czech struggle against both Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union. Having read "The Big Show" by Pierre Clostermann, and having had an Polish acquaintance who escaped Poland after the Nazi onslaught and made it to England, I found the main story line to be reasonably in line historical fact. Thanks to a combination of computer imagery and some surviving Spitfires of the era, the flying scenes are very convincing. The detail in the Spitfire attack on the German train is consistent with real life events of the time.The dramatic aspects of the story are entirely believable also. Lonely men far from home and facing death on a daily basis behave very much like the characters in this story. The turns of events also reflect a very believable story line. The directors do a creditable job of blending three different time periods so that there is enough continuity to make the drama of this story manageable.This film held my interest from the start for several reasons: I'm a retired military flier; I'm a student of history, especially the history of WWII; I'm way past being tired of the trashy Hollywood versions of world events. This film is a top notch product in every respect.