Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag (2004)

Masterful Cinema

Great Film overall

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Stepphen Low's "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag" is an American 40-minute short film from over 10 years ago and the title already tells you what this is about. I must say I generally do not have a great interest or any interest at all in this subject, so i cannot say i was surprised how little this documentary did for me. It's probably only worth a watch if you have a great interest in aviation, American military (history) or are a (fighter) pilot yourself. The technical aspects did not do a whole lot for me and the patriotic parts was a bit on the cringeworthy side as well and felt way over the top in my opinion. That said, I also never really felt that this one may get me interested in the subject or be a really informative watch. As a whole, i give this one a thumbs down and only the demographics I mentioned earlier may want to check it out. Not recommended.

There are so many flaws in this film. I am a military buff and I've worked at an IMAX for years, so I've seen this film hundreds of times. I'm just going to list a few of the errors I've found in the film.Fake explosions. Clearly pyrotechnics during the last bombing run. When the A-10 shoots at the tank a fireball appears from the ground.Some scenes they reuse. They a mirror image in one scene fire the rockets at the air. I can tell because the writing on the rockets is reversed.They show a female pilot boarding a plane that says Captain Jim Worley on the side.They show American pilots boarding an Israeli Air Force F-16.In one scene they say "break left" they show the pilot move the stick left, but they then show the plane from the outside and its turning right.They show an F/A-18 approaching the runway head on, then they switch to a different camera and now all of a sudden its switched to an F-15 thats touched down on the runway.They are not using aggressor F-16s. Agressor F-16s would have blue or brown camouflage. Most scenes the aggressors are gray.They reuse scenes by filming a scene and inserting different CGI aircraft in. One scene they are flying over a bunch of tanks. They reuse this multiple times and simply insert different CGI aircraft to make it look like different shots.They show John Stratton flying an F-15C but from the outside often he is shown in an F-15E."Tractor" the aggressor is supposed to be flying an F-16, but in shots from the cockpit you can clearly see the twin tails of an F-15.At the end they do the picture with everyone and John Stratton blinks during the group portrait. It looks stupid, why couldn't they have freeze framed the shot a second earlier so his eyes were open? Or simply retaken the shot? Is it that hard? On a side note. Why do they keep dumping flares even when in a gun fight? Why do they never dump chaff or shoot beyond visual range missiles? I feel like they are excessively dumping flares because they think it looks cool on camera.All in all I think this was a poorly and hastily down film. They thought they could entertain the audience with fast jets and pyrotechnics. Perhaps they did, I thought it was OK the first time I saw it, but the more you see it the more you can see its faults all to clearly. I know most people only see an IMAX once, but I have seen other IMAX films many times as well, and have not caught nearly as many sloppy or technical errors as on this film.

I saw this for the first time when I was in high school, while on vacation, and just before an air show. Not knowing much about mil aviation I was fascinated by it and inspired (started my pilot training within a few months after). Unfortunately I made the mistake of watching it again recently, and being more knowledgeable about the subject, it ruined the movie for me.On the IMAX screen the footage is incredible, as for watching the movie on your computer or TV, you can probably find better clips on YouTube. Anyways, at least the footage is of real airplanes.The scenes inside the controlling aircraft were so fake it was painful, obviously inside a studio. The amount of flare popping was annoying as well, especially because they made the aircraft so quiet.They made the lead character into a nerd, I'm sure he's a cool dude in real life, but he was so watered down I had to tune out the narration in some parts. I was also disappointed with the pyrotechnics, couldn't they have used footage of some real bombs? Anyways, if you can get past the fact that hardly any of the tactics in the film are real, as well as the fake sets and pyrotechnics in some parts, it's got some great footage and is worth watching once or twice. It's an inspirational film to say the least.

I was so looking forward to seeing this film, especially as it was made for the wonderful IMAX format, yet it turned out to be such a let down. If you know nothing about the subject yet want to feel that you are flying with the aircraft then by all means go an see this film. If you know something about the subject matter then you will pick holes all over the place in this film. Whilst not being a pilot I know enough about this to comment.The film follows the story of a pilot from the 366th Fighter Wing at Mountain Home AFB who goes to the Red Flag exercise at Nellis AFB for the first time. It took me three-quarters of the film to fully establish what aircraft type he flies because of the poor continuity this film suffers from. To start with, it implies he flies an F-15C Eagle but for much of the film we see sequences involving the F-15E Strike Eagle. It was only when I realised which squadron his neck scarf and shoulder patch represented that I knew for sure what he flew in. In the mix are sequences involving F-15Cs from the U.S. Airforce wing based in Japan (look for the "ZZ"s), all seen on the ground when our pilot was being discussed. The film must have been made during two or more Red Flag exercises, as we see Royal Navy Sea Harriers in one shot, and RAF Harriers in another (no, they were not there at the same time!). We have another sequence where the commentator talks about aircraft from other visiting nations, yet fails to mention the Israelis, whose F-16s we are viewing at the time. My view is that if they are too politically sensitive to talk about then don't even show us the images either! We then move to the flying sequences. This has quite clearly been filmed over Idaho: firstly, Nevada is not that green; and secondly it involves F-15s and F-16s from Mountain Home in Idaho, and A-10s from the Idaho Air National Guard (neither the A-10s or F-16s were seen at Nellis earlier). The flying sequences involve both snippets of poor CGI'd aircraft and internal views of a controlling E-3 AWACs, which is quite obviously inside a studio. The ground attack sequences should use the term "Fire for effect" as that is what they clearly are, poor fireworks!!! The one true sequence we see of modern munitions hitting their targets looks very different. I know much of this may seem like nit-picking but the film started out with so much promise, and then it goes on to suffer from "dumbing-down", which is a great shame as several bits are very good, especially one where a camera is slung underneath an F-15 and we get treated to some great low-level flying; and the shot of four F-15Es in close formation at a fairly low-level. I may not be able to review this film as eloquently as others do but that is down to my sheer frustration at a chance wasted here. I feel like the audience is being treated as a fool because of the appalling continuity and dumbing down for effect of this film. Top Gun may have had its faults but it is a far better film than this.