Rating of
2/4
Twelve O'Clock High
Ichabod Crane - wrote on 11/04/09
This is a film about pilots during World War II who go day after day in missions that will more than likely results in the deaths of some of the men. The film has some major problems. It has too many characters who are listed by names and you would be hard pressed to recall who they are. For example there is one big dramatic moment where one of the men has died on a mission but you would have a hard time remebering who they are. Only Dean Jagger and Gregory Peck are given enough time to even be noticed as characters. Everyone else pretty much blends in all together.
The scenes of the missions really do not work as well as they should. They use stock footage to fill in for the film air fights, and it doesn't really work well. It is obvious from the scratchy ness, and although it certainly is the most realistic footage that could be found as a film it leaves a great deal to be desired. The fights never have the viceral effect one would think they should because of this, and really all the mission scenes end up feeling fairly dull due to this fact.
The film attempts a little bit to get into the psychological damage caused by war, but even that feels a bit rushed through. It also has a pretty poor scene which starts out strongly as a man is too nervous to continue, but than it just feels old timey (in a bad way) when he stares forward in an obviously acted comatose face. This personal aspect never really comes alive in a powerful way.
The performances in this film never make up for the material. Dean Jagger is his usual uninspired self here despite having the role which should act as the heart of the film. Gregory Peck never makes much of his character. He is descent enough, but never particularly inspiring as this leader of men either. The rest of the performances are instantly forgettable which is a serious problem due to the reasons I stated in the first paragraph.
This film is not really bad in the sense that it has bad scenes. Instead it is basically a series of unremarkable scenes front to back. There might be a moment or two that surpass this trend, but certainly not enough to make up for the fairly tepid pace of the whole affair. There defintely is an interesting story to be found with this subject matter, but this just is not it. It would have benefitted greatly from either more fleashed out characters or at least performances that made the characters stand out more. I hate to say, but also they really should have used fake footage rather than the real footage they ended up using for the mission scenes to make them come alive. I know that sounds strange but unfortunately it is true.
