Stepphen Low's "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag" is an American 40-minute short film from over 10 years ago and the title already tells you what this is about. I must say I generally do not have a great interest or any interest at all in this subject, so i cannot say i was surprised how little this documentary did for me. It's probably only worth a watch if you have a great interest in aviation, American military (history) or are a (fighter) pilot yourself. The technical aspects did not do a whole lot for me and the patriotic parts was a bit on the cringeworthy side as well and felt way over the top in my opinion. That said, I also never really felt that this one may get me interested in the subject or be a really informative watch. As a whole, i give this one a thumbs down and only the demographics I mentioned earlier may want to check it out. Not recommended.

If you don't understand what the directors when through then why do you automatically downplay the movie? This movie revolves around Captain Stratton a fighter pilot new to Operation Red Flag at Nellis air force base in Nevada outside Las Vegas.For the cinematography, it was excellent and well done. Of course not all the scenes where real, they couldn't have been. Do you really expect the air force to let a filming crew into a war zone with 120 million dollar fighters from over 5 different countries? The only CGI in the film was the '3D' fighter sequences onboard the AWACS and there was no CGI 'fire' when the fighters blew up tanks. Most everything was real with exceptions to the opening scene when they go through briefing the first time. With all the scenes using munitions, the camera crew was in fact there. In the 'bonus features' on the DVD if you rented it they even show how close they stood to one of the bombing runs.As for the rescue sequence when the pilot was 'downed' as part of the excercise, come on, do you really think the air force would conduct a rescue operation with a bunch of IMAX cameras hovering around a 'hidden' pilot and still called the mission 'practice for the real thing'? Obviously some things were 'staged' in this movie but what the film should be notorious for is the angles with which the camera captures. I guarantee you will see nothing on par with this in other films and the way the director accomplished this is truly 'stunning'.

I went to a prescreening of this in early 2005, and it was specifically hyped by one of the featured pilots, Major Novotony, as the Air Force's long overdue answer to Top Gun. Although most of the cinematography was well done for an IMAX theater, there was no real depth to the movie with the audience getting dragged along with a main character that was sheepish and uninteresting--not what people perceive in fighter pilots. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Although the movie is presented as a pseudo-documentary, it shows the main character in a later exercise mission in a role as a downed pilot involved in escape and evasion from enemy forces, while trying to signal to friendly pararescue forces. This part does not suit the film presentation and feels very staged, as it's unlikely that the opposing forces would not find the downed pilot with all the IMAX crew and equipment focused upon him. Overall, this movie is very sparkly at times, but is composed entirely of makeup with no underlying beauty.

I was so looking forward to seeing this film, especially as it was made for the wonderful IMAX format, yet it turned out to be such a let down. If you know nothing about the subject yet want to feel that you are flying with the aircraft then by all means go an see this film. If you know something about the subject matter then you will pick holes all over the place in this film. Whilst not being a pilot I know enough about this to comment.The film follows the story of a pilot from the 366th Fighter Wing at Mountain Home AFB who goes to the Red Flag exercise at Nellis AFB for the first time. It took me three-quarters of the film to fully establish what aircraft type he flies because of the poor continuity this film suffers from. To start with, it implies he flies an F-15C Eagle but for much of the film we see sequences involving the F-15E Strike Eagle. It was only when I realised which squadron his neck scarf and shoulder patch represented that I knew for sure what he flew in. In the mix are sequences involving F-15Cs from the U.S. Airforce wing based in Japan (look for the "ZZ"s), all seen on the ground when our pilot was being discussed. The film must have been made during two or more Red Flag exercises, as we see Royal Navy Sea Harriers in one shot, and RAF Harriers in another (no, they were not there at the same time!). We have another sequence where the commentator talks about aircraft from other visiting nations, yet fails to mention the Israelis, whose F-16s we are viewing at the time. My view is that if they are too politically sensitive to talk about then don't even show us the images either! We then move to the flying sequences. This has quite clearly been filmed over Idaho: firstly, Nevada is not that green; and secondly it involves F-15s and F-16s from Mountain Home in Idaho, and A-10s from the Idaho Air National Guard (neither the A-10s or F-16s were seen at Nellis earlier). The flying sequences involve both snippets of poor CGI'd aircraft and internal views of a controlling E-3 AWACs, which is quite obviously inside a studio. The ground attack sequences should use the term "Fire for effect" as that is what they clearly are, poor fireworks!!! The one true sequence we see of modern munitions hitting their targets looks very different. I know much of this may seem like nit-picking but the film started out with so much promise, and then it goes on to suffer from "dumbing-down", which is a great shame as several bits are very good, especially one where a camera is slung underneath an F-15 and we get treated to some great low-level flying; and the shot of four F-15Es in close formation at a fairly low-level. I may not be able to review this film as eloquently as others do but that is down to my sheer frustration at a chance wasted here. I feel like the audience is being treated as a fool because of the appalling continuity and dumbing down for effect of this film. Top Gun may have had its faults but it is a far better film than this.