Flyboys (2006)


James Franco            Blaine Rawlings
Jean Reno               Captain Thenault
David Ellison           Eddie Beagle
Martin Henderson        Reed Cassidy
Jennifer Decker         Lucienne
Abdul Salis             Eugene Skinner
Philip Winchester       William Jensen
Tyler Labine            Briggs Lowry
Christien Anholt        Higgins
Daniel Rigby            Ives
Barry McGee             Dewitt
Augustin Legrand        LT Giroux
Lex Shrapnel            Grant
Keith McErlean          Vernon Toddman

Directed by:            Tony Bill
Produced by:            David Brown (VIII), Duncan Reid, James Clayton (II)


In 1914, "The Great War" --WWI--began in Europe. By 1917, the Allied powers of France, England, Italy 
and others were on the ropes against the German juggernaut. Some altruistic young Americans disagreed 
with the war. They volunteered to fight alongside their counterparts in France; some in the infantry, 
some in the Ambulance Corps. A handful of others had a different idea: they decided to learn how to fly. 
The first of them--a squadron of only 38-- became known as the Lafayette Escadrille. This is their story. 
Forced to abandon his family's ranch, Blaine Rawlings finds his future in a newsreel chronicling the 
adventures of young aviators in France. At a small train station in rural Nebraska, William Jensen 
promises to make his family proud. In New York, spoiled Briggs Lowry embarks on a trans-Atlantic passage. 
Meanwhile, in France, black expatriate boxer, Eugene Skinner, vows to repay his debt to his adopted 
racially tolerant country. Together, these American boys arrive at an aerodrome in France, eager to learn 
how to fly. What they didn't realize was that they were about to embark on a great, romantic adventure, 
becoming the world's first combat pilots.

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Before the United States entered World War I, young Americans went to France to be fighter pilots, joining 
the Lafayette Escadrille. This fictional version follows a laconic Texas rancher, an eager Nebraska kid, a 
Black boxer already in France, and a New York swell, as they arrive green for training, get their baptism 
by fire when German planes ambush them on their first mission, and graduate to heroics. Rawlings, the Texan, 
falls in love with a young woman he meets at a bordello. Keeping their eyes on them are Captain Thenault and 
Cassidy, the resident ace, who keeps a pet lion. Can the boys measure up?