This is a South African made film about some of the former colonies men who volunteered their services to fight for Britain at the hour of her greatest need in the dark days of World War 2. Meet Captain Kirk (yes he is really called that) played by Nicholas Van Der Bijl, in a performance of varying degrees. He leads a motley crew of his fellow countrymen who use such vocabulary as 'cheerio' and 'filly' in reference to ladies. Anyway they are fighting for RAF, Bomber Command and have to go and bomb the bejesus out of Germany etc.
Well whilst over Germany they get shot and have to make an emergency landing and then decide to battle their way back to France and the safety of the British lines, this is set late in the war and Operation Overlord has already taken place so we are well past D Day. What happens next is the story of their journey.
Right, for war film buffs there are a few things wrong with this film, first off the planes are all CGI, which is not a problem as they are all done really well even the Mescherschmitts, with props that look real and proper smoke etc so well done there. Problem is these guys are flying during the day. By this stage of the war the USAAF were doing the daylight runs and the RAF were doing the night runs. And they had fighter escort in the latter stages when this is set and there are none here. They are also flying Liberators which were never deployed to bomb Bremen by the RAF as depicted here. Now you are doing CGI so you could have got a Lancaster or a Wellington even, but still never mind.
The acting is all quite good and the love interest in the shape of Kirky's beloved in good if underplayed Lillie Claire as the neglected and dutiful lover is actually really convincing. This does have its moments and is far from being a bad movie, but factual errors really annoy some people and it is not a real full on 'action fest' especially once the plane goes splat, but I still found a lot to actually like here, hence the rating. If factual errors annoy you then best to avoid, and it was originally released as 'Angel of the skies' in a reference to the plane and not the overblown title we have presented here.
