Flyboys (2006) on Netflix
PG-1320062h 18mActionAdventureDrama
Americans volunteer for the French Air Service before their country enters World War I, training as fighter pilots in the Lafayette Escadrille. Blaine Rawlings, a Texas rancher, joins them.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.5/1046,629 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes33%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1916, with the United States still neutral, a group of young Americans travels to France to join the French Air Service. Captain Georges Thenault commands the squadron, and the veteran ace Reed Cassidy serves as their mentor. Blaine Rawlings, a Texas rancher whose family land faces foreclosure, enlists after watching a newsreel of aerial combat. Eugene Skinner, a boxer, wants to repay the country that accepted him. William Jensen comes from a military family in Lincoln, Nebraska, and hopes to make them proud, while Briggs Lowry joins because of his overbearing father. Eddie Beagle is a petty thief evading the consequences of a crime. During a practice flight, Rawlings runs out of fuel and crashes. He meets Lucienne, a French woman who lives with her orphaned nephews and niece and fears for the danger he faces.
Cast
- Karen Fordas Mrs. Jensen
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Flyboys (2006)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Flyboys was privately financed outside the standard Hollywood studio circuit by a group of filmmakers and investors including producer Dean Devlin and pilot David Ellison, son of Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison. They spent more than $60 million of their own money to make and market the film.
- Franco took flying lessons to prepare for the starring role, and all the other main actors except Jean Reno were filmed in actual aircraft for the aerial footage. Reno pointedly refused the offer with a No thanks, I'm afraid of flying, and very little other than Franco's cockpit closeups reached the screen.
- Four of the Nieuport 17s in the film were replicas built by Airdrome Aeroplanes, a company based outside Kansas City, Missouri, but the Nieuport 17 that Franco used throughout filming was an original combat aircraft from Kermit Weeks' collection in Florida, specially brought over for the film.
- The Nieuport and Fokker aircraft flown in the movie are flying replicas built with new radial engines, because original-type rotary engines were no longer available.
