The only film this year to list Tom Hanks and Hitler in the “cast list” section on iMDB. This is the companion documentary to Masters Of The Air, a fantastic limited series on Apple Plus, which was also narrated by Laura Post. This documentary tells the true story, and in many ways would be a spoiler if you wanted the series to surprise you.
Real interviews are used, along with footage from the era, and commentary from those involved in the creation and production of Masters of The Air, explaining why this story is so worthy of its own incarnation. To see the story dramatized is harrowing enough, but to follow it with a documentary featuring accounts from some of those involved, is just a stronger reinforcement that what you just saw was something beyond special.
The audio description here does a really nice job of navigating war footage, news reels, and current-ish interviews to help shape the story of these men and their bravery. It’s really a talking head type documentary, which makes the navigation of the description somewhat tricky. Who is talking, and why are they important? Almost always that’s the first thing to discusss, and rarely do we ever have time for a description of the speaker before someone starts talking.
My only negative here is that this always feels like a companion documentary, and never something that could have existed on its own. Almost like a making of featurette except for the length and the story of the Bloody Hundredth getting some detail.I think though that the expectation is that anyone who saw this, also saw the series, and that this just provides color for the series. It is well made, but with Hanks and Spielberg both behind Masters Of THe Air, it is hard to think that neither of them wanted to helm this documentary, and if they had would it feel more like a stand alone effort?
Final Grade: A-
