Aces High (1976)

(On Cable TV, May 2022) If you want to talk about movies as crude time-travel devices, then Aces High gets you two trips for the price of one: As per topic matter, it travels to World War I, specifically the barracks hosting the English pilots going to the front in their rickety planes. The very specific tone of the film (which borrows its plot from the classic Journey’s End) is dictated by the fighting conditions it describes, with a pilot’s life expectancy being measured in days rather than weeks. With that kind of turnover, there’s a curious mixture of gallows humour and deliberate detachment amongst the pilots brought back in this frat-house-like atmosphere. The second bit of time-travel is in going back to the very specific flavour of 1970s British filmmaking, especially as it relates to war films. While the British film industry’s shift from war-is-an-adventure to war-is-hell was more gradual and mannered than the American abrupt-face throughout the accumulating toll of the Vietnam War, there was such a shift and Aces High is clearly about the butchery of World War I, albeit in a clipped, nearly ironic way. It’s also a chance to see such actors as Malcolm McDowell and Christopher Plummer early in their careers. Working in a pre-digital age where the only way to get aerial footage was either shooting it, or reusing footage shot for other films, Aces High does both – fans of The Blue Max should recognize a few shots. It amounts to an interesting film – the focus on the barracks antics is original enough, and the way the film approaches its anti-war message is affecting without being too clumsy. There’s a long list of World War I films, and while Aces High isn’t necessarily mandatory, it’s not a bad pick.