Review – Aces High

Though I didn’t intend this at the outset, this turned out to be the first of two different adaptations of the same story that I watched back to back. This effort from 1976 relocates R.C. Sherriff’s World War One play from the trenches to the Royal Flying Corps, but otherwise the story remains largely the same. Malcolm McDowell stars as a cynical commander trying to manage naive rookies, a PTSD’d pilot and other woes amid the war’s blend of grim death and trivial melodrama. The movie is also notable for its impressive (however combat-unrealistic) aerial stunt work. Mildly amusing