Welcome back to Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show you a 2019 British war film called,
Lancaster Skies. Spoiler’s ahead. Sit back, relax and enjoy the video.
The movie starts in the spring of 1944 during the height of the bomber command’s campaign
against the German Nazi, wherein planes are seen peacefully flying in the night sky.
An enemy plane suddenly rushes and throws bullets at them and hits the wing of one of their planes,
as well as its bullets aimed at the other planes as well. The sudden attack leaves the
whole squadron in quite a shock. Then the enemy plane flies into the clouds without a trace.
The planes all set on land and George sees his co-pilot Alfie, not in his normal state
and is dripping in sweat, and realizes that Alfie is actually injured, wherein as their planes land,
the medic immediately comes for their aide and the other pilots are in despair for Alfie.
In a cold winter day, Douglas is finishing off packing his belongings as he is getting ready
to leave and goes forth to his mother’s house, wherein his mother is surprised to see his own son
in front of her doorsteps. Douglas’ mother makes a cup of tea for him when Douglas suddenly informs
his mother that he is offered in a new squadron and is set to leave in the afternoon. Douglas’
mother feels disheartened by the news since she is always thinking about the safety of her own son
and Douglas’ field of work is full of dangers and risks. Douglas insists that he will be fine with
nothing else left more to say and goes to help his father, who is fixing a bicycle in a shed.
Douglas also tells his father about him joining his new squadron and his father shakes his hand,
offers a cigarette to him, and happily talks with him. Their merry conversation
is interrupted by Douglas’ mother, who asks Douglas to come with her.
As Douglas follows his mother, he stumbles upon his younger brother’s old room which is full of
drawings and figurines which are all about being an aircraft pilot. Whilst Douglas is looking
through the room, a memory of Ron, Douglas’ younger brother, suddenly flashes back wherein
it shows how their mother disagrees about Ron’s profession even from the beginning
and refuses to send him away. Douglas’ mother ushers Douglas to the train station to bid
farewell to her son and looks at Douglas’ back with an inevitable sorrow in her eyes.
In a bar, there rest the other aircraft pilots, drinking beers and playing darts.
George starts to tease Charlie in being a “Mama’s Boy” alongside with the other pilots, in which
Charlie starts to be hot-headed in the situation. As Charlie stands up from his chair, he suddenly
bumps into a big man that starts to mock and belittle the aviation army’s profession, in which
Charlie as well as George feels irritated by the big lad’s sudden comments to them. George starts
to demonstrate to the big man that in flipping a coin the head decides that the aviation army lives
and the tail decides that they die. Then George concludes that their field of work may seem easy
for them, but just like the luck of flipping a coin, their lives are also at risk any time.
Douglas enters his new headquarters and finally meets his fellow squadron,
in which a warm welcome is not given by the others in their first meeting and awkwardness
is felt in the whole room with Charlie being the most stubborn in meeting Douglas.
After Douglas packs his things in his room he suddenly bumps into meeting George once again,
wherein George invites Douglas to the Sergeants mess to eat. In the Sergeants mess, Douglas’ other
squadron is also there eating and each of the other squadron starts to introduce themselves
to Douglas. Charlie then follows and sits on their table and Douglas waits for Charlie’s
introduction but a cold shoulder and a forced introduction is given by Charlie to Douglas.
George wants to try and be closer to Douglas and sparks a conversation to Douglas in his room.
George sees Douglas’ figurine and touches it but Douglas swiftly grabs George’s hand since his
figurine lays a deep sentimental value to him. The following day, Douglas takes a look at
his plane and as he slowly touches the plane’s control wheel he is still amazed and mesmerized
by the beauty of his plane. George then comes to Douglas and informs him that they will not
be flying their planes tonight, and Douglas feels furious about the sudden change of plans and goes
back to the headquarters, wherein he suddenly sees Charlie pass by him without any proper greeting.
Douglas in the heat of the moment calls out Charlie and tells him to perform proper greeting
gestures when a superior is in front of him, in which Charlie heavily does his gesture. This
occurrence greatly irritates Charlie and complains about what happened to all of his fellow squadron,
which also annoys the others since he continues to complain about it like a broken tape.
George invites his fellow squadron about them drinking tonight with Douglas, and all agrees
to join in. During their drinking session, Alfie’s wife suddenly comes and George personally delivers
the news about what happened to Alfie. Charlie blames himself upon Alfie’s death,
into which his fellow squadron tells Charlie that it is not his fault but Alfie was just unlucky.
The whole squadron alongside with Douglas, continues to drink all night, and as Douglas
finishes off his last sip of beer, he stands up and starts to go on his way to his room but all of
a sudden he bumps into Kate. Kate offers Douglas to stay with his friends but Douglas is as firm as
ever and without a doubt, declines Kate’s offer. The following morning, Douglas and George walks
together in the hallway. Then all of a sudden, George asks about what Douglas and Kate is talking
about last night in which Douglas refuses to answer. Douglas also replies furiously to George
about not wanting to waste his time and he is there for the war and not to get drunk every
night like them, wherein George tells him that his attitude will surely be his downfall. George then
tells Douglas that staying in the base may not be good for Douglas, and invites Douglas to go
outside wherein George shows Douglas his classic car and their little conversation gradually sparks
a connection between the both of them. Kate and Jo visits Peter wherein Kate tells him about how
odd Douglas is but a complicated person like Douglas highly peaks the interest of Kate.
Meanwhile in a different setting, Charlie plays a fist fight with a big Harold but is
easily punched down by Harold, but due to the encouragement of his fellow squadron as well as
hearing Alfie’s name, Charlie then continues to defeat his opponent and win the fight.
As George is fixing up his hair, he invites Douglas to come and enjoy the night with them in a
bar but as expectedly, Douglas refuses and tells him that he have some work to do. In the bar,
Kate is in deep thoughts about Douglas’ actions and is in a dilemma whether she should talk to
him again or just let him be. As the night gets darker and their drinks get heavier, Douglas
decides to follow them to the bar but he sees Charlie along the way and Charlie unexpectedly
pukes on Douglas’ shoes, in which his fellow squadron and Kate timely sees what is happening.
Douglas quickly commands the others to go help Charlie and gives them money for a ride in a taxi.
Kate also sees an opportunity to talk to Douglas, so she compliments Douglas’ kindness
and earned a smile from Douglas’ face. While George and Douglas are eating,
Kate then goes to them and invites them to watch the Laurel and Hardy show in the afternoon,
but George being a cheeky guy, refuses to go so that Kate and Douglas can go together.
In the end, Kate and Douglas watched the show together, wherein Douglas gradually shows his true
colors to Kate and even makes fun of the old man Patrick about him snoring loudly during the show.
After the show, Kate and Douglas continues to walk together to go back to their base with
Kate’s hand holding unto Douglas’ arms. Kate and Douglas then exchanged their painful past about
the loss of their loved ones, wherein Kate had lost his brother, as well as Douglas explains
that his brother Ron who also loves aircrafts was actually hit by a car by a drinking driver.
Their exchange of conversation shows how close they are at this point,
for them to share private things to one another, and Douglas then invites Kate for a drink.
As Douglas goes back to his room, George asks Douglas about the film and Douglas just looks at
him in which George cheekily smiles at Douglas’ reaction. Out of the blue, George proudly talks
to Douglas about a funny memory of Alfie with his fellow squadron, and even George is baffled by his
own chatty mouth when Douglas suddenly asks George about Alfie’s death. George’s expression suddenly
changes into a bitter one, and then George turns off his record player and sits in front of Douglas
as well as to offer him a cigarette. George tells Douglas that they did not know that Alfie
was actually hit and they only knew about it when they had landed, furthermore George blames himself
and tells Douglas that he should have known that there is something wrong since George
is Alfie’s co-pilot, but instead Alfie also did not tell them about his injury. If Alfie only
told George earlier, George would have helped stop the bleeding, but George tells Douglas
that it is because Alfie just ran out of luck. Douglas then offers George a drink and they bonded
together during the whole night, wherein they even start playing bets about what Henry and Thomas
was actually doing, but since Douglas already knows the answer, he tricked George into betting
with him and Douglas then won a pound from George. The next morning, George who has a
hangover from the drinking session last night, is woken up by a prim and proper Douglas.
Kate enters the base and looks at the chalkboard, in which what is written in the chalkboard is the
time and name of the individuals who will fly that day. Kate suddenly feels downhearted when
she saw Douglas’ name in the chalkboard, since a squadron’s life in a mission is always at risk.
The army aviation starts to gather in the meeting room, wherein the information about their mission
in bombing Berlin, which has a long flight so being alert is a must, is given to them.
After the meeting, Douglas and his squadron are all eating in the same table with a dead silence
filling the room. Douglas greatly notices the deep tension between his squadron, in which their last
mission that ended Alfie’s life is what bothers them, mainly Charlie. Each of them stands up
one-by-one to get ready for their mission, leaving Douglas and a down casted Charlie in the table.
Douglas tries to ask Charlie about his feelings and Charlie replies that he feels better.
Then Charlie stands up and leaves Douglas alone, and in a while Douglas also stands up and leaves.
All of the pilots that are part of the mission start to prepare and wear their proper aviation
gears. George who is all prepared and is sitting on his bed, starts to breakdown upon seeing what
is on Douglas’ table, which is a booklet drawing of Douglas’ younger brother Ron.
A painful memory of George flashes through, wherein George was actually the one who was
driving the car that hits and kills Ron, who is also holding his favorite booklet drawings even in
his death. A sudden regret is what drowns George at the moment, which makes George uncomfortable
being with Douglas, who is also his co-pilot in the mission. Before the takeoff of the pilots,
Kate goes to see Douglas and bids good luck to him on his mission and kisses Douglas,
in which Douglas replies with only a goodbye to Kate. As the planes start to takeoff one by one,
Kate looks at the planes with a worried look, but Jo assures her that there is nothing to
worry about and they will all be safe. Douglas and the other pilots start to
carry out their missions into dropping bombs in the heart of Germany, which is in Berlin.
A sudden attack from enemy planes come rushing in on them and the attack makes Charlie leave astray
from his thoughts and stares blankly. George encourages Charlie to fight back the enemy planes,
wherein Charlie then comes back to his senses and finishes his duties. As they were drawing closer
to their target, Douglas’ and his squadron’s plane is shot in its right engine and Douglas
feels that their plane is quite shaky. Each bomber planes around them starts to crash one-by-one by
the never-ending shot fire by the Germans, but they successfully bombed their targets.
Douglas and his squadron now falls in distress as one of their member, James Parker,
is hit by the enemies and George comes to see the commotion going on, and as George lifts James,
he sees that James is already bleeding. George once again comes near to James and assures him
that they are almost home and James just has to hang on and apply pressure to his wounds to stop
the bleeding. Douglas then informs his squadron about the problem he is encountering, wherein due
to the damage of their planes, he cannot assure all of them that he can land their plane safely,
so they have to prepare their parachutes to get ready to bail out of their aircraft.
With their hands above their heads and fear as well as tears fill their eyes;
all of them start to brace for the impact of their landing and what will happen to them.
Douglas with fear also seen in his eyes asks for George’s hand and tightly shakes it,
as if assuring that they are all in this together. Douglas then lets out the phrase “On a wing and a
prayer”, in which George who is also familiar by the phrase and finishes it by saying “Knights of
the air”, which is actually the phrase that is written in Douglas’ younger brother’s booklet
drawing about being a pilot. The movie ends with a cliffhanger without the audience knowing what
happened to Douglas and his squadron, but as it is based in real life, out of 125,000 pilots that
flew under the bomber command; more than 55,000 had lost their lives during the World War II.
This film is dedicated to all of the men and women who had bravely served under the bomber command.