Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Brandin Lindsey Usually introduced as an early action film, this movie has a surprising amount of depth and conflict among the characters. The bonds of brotherhood, romance, and questioning the meaning of life are much more prevalent factors in the film than war and combat. Created by the eccentric Howard Hughes with a notoriously eventful production period, one is blind-sided by the character development found within. Even today, over 80 years after it's production, the struggles of the characters are still relevant and I find myself relating to both brothers.Ironically, the action parts of this action film bring the entire picture to a screeching halt. Extremely early in action filming, the action scenes are difficult to follow and full of awkward camera angles. After a while, I lose track of who is shooting at who and become incredibly bored with the action scenes. Overall, not a bad movie. A great example of a decent film of the period, with a little bit of everything. Definitely worth a watch.

Dalbert Pringle Back in 1930, multi-millionaire, Howard Hughes (25 at the time) may have been the richest kid on the block, but, regardless of that, when it came to competently directing a Hollywood, adventure movie he was sure clueless, as was clearly evident here with Hell's Angels.Even for a film from that particular era of early movie-making, Hell's Angels was still noticeably mediocre and below-par in so many ways.With this film's budget being $4 million (making it the most expensive picture of its time), I have to tell you that I honestly couldn't see (by the final product) where all of this money was spent.From my point of view - The one and only reason for watching Hell's Angels was for its fairly impressive aerial dogfight sequences (which, unfortunately, happened so few and far between throughout the story).Without these action scenes, this film would've been a real forgettable, nothing picture. And, believe me, at 2 hours and 11 minutes, Hell's Angels was already running on empty, anyway, right from the very start.

Tad Pole . . . who proves to be a Brit! The power of life to imitate art cannot be overestimated, and Howard Hughes was a master of insinuating his morbid fantasies into the fabric of civilization forevermore. He famously designed the cantilevered brassiere for one of his movies, which persisted to Madonna and beyond. Here, in the oddly-titled HELL'S ANGELS, the Allied anti-heroes use suicide as a military tactic more than once. Not to be outdone, dozens of Germans march out the bomb bay of their dirigible without parachutes, viewing themselves as expendable ballast. Even fratricide is not off limits to the main character, and if Howard could have worked a little incest into the plot I'm sure he would have. Hughes lured three stunt pilots to their deaths in "real life" during the making of this flick. It got to the point where Howard had to put his mouth where his money was, and fly his death crates himself for the stunts toward the end of the shoot. As a death-obsessed crazy living a charmed life, he survived to film this movie not once, but twice, making it the most expensive flick until GONE WITH THE WIND came out. Adjusted for ego and inflation, it tops HEAVEN'S GATE and ISHTAR put together as a monument to the wrong-headed promulgation of dangerous ideas which obviously inspired PEARL HARBOR. Too bad we do not know what variation of "Rosebud" Hughes was muttering as he passed away in his museum of his own carefully bottled and preserved urine.

agsconnolly I really had no idea what to expect from this film. Like many people, I had been attracted to it by the clips shown during Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, and was intrigued enough to buy the DVD. I read several reviews before watching it, which were inconclusive, but I must confess I was dubious about the fact that the majority of the film had been re-shot after the dawn of motion picture sound, suggesting a rushed or insensitive job.Having now seen the film, I must say I was more than pleasantly surprised. Considering it was made in 1930, Hell's Angels is unfailingly watchable. The relationship study between the brothers Roy and Monty, along with Jean Harlow's Helen, is unexpectedly interesting, and some of the avenues the film explores are, at times, gripping. The sexuality of the film must have been rather shocking for its time, not unlike director Howard Hughes' compelling use of colour in certain scenes.But of course, the great talking points of Hell's Angels are the aerial battles that were filmed so daringly by Hughes in mid-air. The closeness of the aircraft and the clear danger that many of the planes were in is alarming stuff and - whatever one says about the wisdom of the techniques involved - makes positively stunning film. Three pilots died during the filming, and Hughes himself was badly injured; but he was always fascinated by how far boundaries could be pushed, and that is clear right throughout the movie.The film's plot has been somewhat maligned, which is rather cruel considering when it was made and the fact that it is not predictable in the way that many of today's movies are. The performances are competent, the characters believable and the ending is what would be deemed 'satisfying'. The scale of this film is frankly monumental, and it is hard to think of a film being made on a scale which would equate to it today without the use of CGI. I am surprised this is not considered a classic, as it offers as much, if not more, than many movies placed in that bracket from a similar era.