Very well executed

Absolutely Fantastic

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I bought "50 Combat Classics" for 10 bucks at Walmart, not expecting much, and the version of Partizanska Escadrila, called "Battle of the Eagles" on Disc 8 lived down to expectations. This is not to say my 10 bucks were wasted, there have been some pleasant surprises in the 50 films, but this was not one of them. The film included on this DVD set, is the chopped up, and dubbed version, as described by other reviewers.As is clear from the IMDb summary for Partizanska Escadrila, this is a Yugoslavian production from 1979. Why somebody felt compelled to produce a pure propaganda piece 34 years after the War, WWII, is a mystery to this reviewer.It is hard, for me, to judge acting or actor ability with a dubbed film, but, while there are an abundance of stereotypical, war movie characters, there are no obvious instances of histrionics or blatant overacting. On the checklist of characters, there is the cool, firm, competent leader (the Major). The free-spirited, skilled, and reckless pilot. The sullen, sulky, reluctant, volunteer (the non-communist that steals a plane from the Germans, to serve the homeland). His doomed sidekick, who has to earn his trust. The goofy kid, that rises from incompetence to hero. The quiet woman of compassion, who loves the leader (the radio operator). The goofy kid's, every-woman, love interest, who sacrifices all to be near him. All the stock characters seem covered.The action in this film requires a major suspension of belief, as the hopelessly outnumbered heroes, in hopelessly outdated planes, take on a supposedly modern Air Force AND Army on equal terms. By equal terms, I mean that there are losses on both sides, and there are mission successes on both sides. (The Luftwaffe, when fighting planes of the quality depicted in this film, swept away the entire organized Air Forces of THREE countries (Poland, Holland, Belgium) in less than a week, cumulatively.) The climactic air duel, pits the Major, leader of the partisans, against the evil, I guess (more on this later), German Gestapo officer. What a policeman, which is what the Gestapo was, is doing in a Luftwaffe fighter, is, yet another, mystery to me.About the Gestapo guy...I guess he is evil, but, as I speak nearly no German, at all, I cannot be sure. That is because on the dubbed version provided in this film collection, ONLY THE YUGOSLAV DIALOGUE IS DUBBED IN English! The DAMN Germans SPEAK ONLY UNTRANSLATED German! The only German word I could even correctly translate myself was the "Scheiß" (shit), as the sullen guy stole the German plane. So, nearly a third of this film was incomprehensible to this viewer! In summary, a somewhat predictable Yugoslavian flag waver of limited entertainment value to this monolingual English speaking viewer. Not the worst film I've seen in the aforementioned DVD collection, but not nearly good enough to warrant a repeat viewing.

Okay, I guess it's not realistic. Being unfamiliar with the history of the Partisan Air Force, I can't say. But it is a pretty good story and hearkens back to the beginning of aerial bombing; simply tossing bombs out the side of a biplane. It's interesting watching the unit grow from a couple of biplanes to a real air force by stealing planes from the enemy and being on the run from the same enemy. So as a flying war story, it's pretty good. But the 102 minute version is indeed poorly hacked up and since that's the one I saw, that's the one I have to vote on.Very clichéd. Boy meets girl but he is too busy running the outfit to give her the time of day, until it's too late, and then only to fly back over the base after the climatic final mission and call her name on the radio and then disappear mysteriously ala the ending of Fighter Squadron I believe it was, where the hero spirals down into the clouds, leaving their fates unknown. Other boy meets other girl, boy becomes hero and wins girl, girl becomes dead. The only thing missing was him becoming enraged and destroying the enemy single handed. As mentioned, the partisans are dubbed in English but the Germans speak German without subtitles making those scenes pretty pointless unless you happen to speak German. Even then I think they could have been cut in favor of fleshing out the partisan parts. But I guess they were trying to set up the final battle between two opponents who had been playing cat and mouse throughout the movie. It doesn't really work, especially when you can't understand what the cat is saying.Other than that, it's a fairly decent war story which suffers from poor editing and poor model effects, though they do know how to blow stuff up.P.S. As a note to whomever is in charge of stuff like this: The US version is named The Battle of the Eagles. Yet Eagle (Adler) is what the German pilots called themselves in this movie. Sort of confusing, don't you think? Rather than naming it after the bad guys, maybe it should have been named something like, oh say Partisan Squadron. duh. 5/10 from me.

It really amazed me to see that someone would take so much time to assess such a bad movie. The beginning (of the film) had some truth in it. The Partisan "AF" was started in 1943 when two communist pilots from the Croat Ustashi AF deserted, together with their observers, in Breguet 19 and Potez 33, respectively. The aircraft saw some action in strafing and hand-bombing, but didn't last very long. One crew was killed and the other survived, the pilot being killed later while flying a Spitfire Vc. The real Partisan squadrons were established when RAF detached two of its (Yugoslav) squadrons of Spitfire Vc and, Hurricane IIc , respectively, manned by Ex Yugoslav Royal Airforce pilots, and allotted them to Tito's forces on the Island of Vis. Even those were never engaged in air-to-air activities, but strictly for ground support. So the film was one giant cow manure, to put it mildly, and the lowest point for its, otherwise not at all bad, director. By some quirk of fate I was present on the filming of the last sequence of the movie, when dozens of German aircraft were destroyed (Yugoslav 522 trainers, used also in the flying sequences) on the Mostar military airport. The pyrotechnics were impressive, and the Scotch served lavishly by the film crew was even better. Otherwise, the film was a shameless lie was and frequently joked about by the contemporary audience.

An interesting Yugoslavian WWII film about which celebrates the relatively unsung story of the Yugoslavian Partisan air-force who took on the might of the Luftwaffe with outdated biplanes in 1942 occupied Yugoslavia.Cinematically there are some superb sequences in this film shot against the dramatic backdrop of Yugoslavian scenery but the film is badly let down by some poorly thought out and clichéd scenes and dog fights using model aircraft where the aeroplanes have a tendency to burst into unconvincing explosions.A little skillful editing could do much to improve the appearance of the film to remove some of those unnecessary scenes that distract from the overall quality. Many of these scenes simply don't work or are so clichéd that they become laughable. Little can be done with regard to the dog fights and other ludicrous airborne attack scenes using models.It's a shame that Hajrudin Krvavac who directed this film couldn't re-shoot some of the aerial sequences concentrating more on superb flying skills and cinematography rather than trying to rely on the dramatic action sequences on a low budget. Good aerial sequences pitching biplane against Messerschmitts would raise this film to the level that it deserves and some clever low level circus flying, carefully shot, would highlight the cavalier but heroic nature of these partisan pilots as well as be thrilling to watch.In the final flying sequence of the film while the partisans are attacking a bridge suspended over a spectacular gorge an opportunity was missed for some breathtaking flying sequences given the plot that two of the pilots earlier admit to low level flying under a bridge.The music score by Bojan Adamic on the whole overwhelms the film and is used inappropriately throughout which is something, again, that a little skillful editing could dramatically improve upon and bring the quality and appearance of the film up a notch or two.Originally filmed in Serbo-Croat, I personally would have much preferred if this film had been released with subtitles rather than being dubbed because the dubbing is extremely poor and distracts from the acting performances of the actors who on the whole do a good job of portraying their characters.The film also suffers from poor continuity in one or two scenes but like the unnecessary, clichéd scenes, the overbearing and inappropriate use of background score and the poor dubbing these could be skillfully edited out to improve the viewing of the movie enormously.I was surprised when I watched this movie to find out that it was actually filmed in 1979 because the overall feel of the movie makes it look like a much more recent production much to the credit of Krvavac.The film is now available on DVD and has a running time of 122 minutes which is still 8 minutes short of the original.On the whole the film concentrates on a few hit and run flying missions from grass stripped runways and one to watch if you can get over the points mentioned above.This could be a stunning film if ever given the Hollywood big budget treatment with a greater attention to the flying sequences.