WWI flick ‘Fly Boys’ goes down in flames

In theaters

FLY BOYS, directed by Tony Bill, written by David S. Ward, 139 minutes, rated PG-13.

Tony Bill’s new World War I movie, “Fly Boys,” is at its best when it’s high up in its computer-generated skies. There, elegant, computer-generated fighter planes swoop dramatically through a ballet of computer-generated bullets.

The action scenes are brisk and beautiful – too beautiful, really – polished to such a degree that you watch the planes get hammered with gunfire, catch fire and blow smoke with the same emotional investment you might bring to, say, a video game featuring the same material.

Bill’s approach to the first World War is to ignore its grisly realities. People repeatedly are killed in this movie, but you don’t ever feel their loss. Instead, the film would rather romanticize and glorify war, so much so that the end result is a movie sucked free of authenticity.

But what a lovely lack of authenticity. For instance, when a Zeppelin looms high on the horizon in a later scene, you watch it knowing it’s the money shot, only here to offer the inevitable bloom of a beautiful explosion. You sit waiting in comfort with no sense of dread or suspense even when it finally is attacked. As it breaks apart in stunning flashes of persimmon, the undercurrent is that war is pretty, which is, shall we say, somewhat fractured from reality and a good reason why it’s so difficult to take the movie seriously.

There are other reasons, most of which stem from David S. Ward’s risible script. At its core, “Fly Boys” is about the Lafayette Escadrille – a group of American expatriates who went to France in April 1916 to join the French air force. They include smoldering cowboy Blaine Rawlings (James Franco), boxer Eugene Skinner (Abdul Salis), stuffy Briggs Lowry (Tyler Labine), puffy-lipped Eddie Beagle (David Ellison), and Jensen (Philip Winchester), whose solid jaw belies a weakness he must eventually conquer.

Leading them is Capt. Thenault (Jean Reno); taunting them is Cassidy (Martin Henderson), who already has shot down his share of the enemy and has the attitude to prove it; and distracting them is Lucienne (Jennifer Decker), a lovely French lass who has stolen Blaine’s heart and thus presents the possibility for rescue.

This could have been a better movie if none of its characters were allowed to interact. But since they must, it’s in their stiff, rote conversations that the film becomes unredeemable and, at nearly 2.5 hours, unbearable. With the ongoing gloss, the tin dialogue and the broad echoes of “Star Wars,” “Fly Boys” is about as far removed from the best examples of the genre – “Wings” and “Hell’s Angels” – as it could get.

Grade: C-

On DVD

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, written and directed by Jason Reitman, based on the novel by Christopher Buckley, 92 minutes, rated R.

Jason Reitman’s “Thank You for Smoking” features the sort of edge that pop culture needs right now to make it interesting again.

This movie about Big Tobacco finds Aaron Eckhart’s Nick Taylor standing tall as the group’s charismatic lobbyist. There seems to be nothing Nick can’t argue persuasively, particularly when pitted against Vermont Sen. Ortolan Finistirre (William H. Macy), a flustered fuss determined to print a morbid illustration of a skull and crossbones on every pack of cigarettes.

And yet he’s no match for Nick, who is so skilled at turning the tables on people that he implies at the congressional hearing that those selling Vermont cheddar cheese, for instance, should apply the same label to their products. After all, aren’t farmers killing people with their artery-clogging cheddar? Shouldn’t people be better informed about the fat in their cheese? Or maybe consumers should just choose for themselves, which is the core of Nick’s argument, the one intoxicating fact to which he always returns. What is more American than our right to choose?

There’s so much to admire about “Smoking,” you savor it for the rare satire that it is – this is a movie that is as much about lobbyists and tobacco as it is about spin.

Joining the toxic mix are Nick’s friends in the MoD Squad, or the “Merchants of Death,” a group of hard-core lobbyists (Maria Bello, David Koechner) from Alcohol and Firearms who meet for drinks each week so they can share their war stories. Robert Duvall is perfectly cast as The Captain, the slippery, yellowing kingpin of Big Tobacco who sees in Nick an impressive future. A pre-Tom Katie Holmes comes through with a fine performance as a reporter. And there’s Cameron Bright as Nick’s son, Joey, who learns plenty from his father about the powers of persuasion.

But not deceit. In the end, what “Smoking” gets exactly right is that it doesn’t vilify Nick, which would have been too easy, too predictable – exactly what a weaker, politically correct film would have done. Indeed, in spite of his job, it’s tough to dislike him. Here is a man who has his convictions, who is direct and honest, who is good at what he does, and who enjoys his job. He freely admits to his son that he’s doing it all “for the mortgage,” which doesn’t let him off the hook, but which does add layers that resonate in this fresh, very funny movie.

Grade: A-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.