Dark Blue World

Sverak is certainly a technically polished film-maker; but he's also a shameless manipulator of easy emotions and - judging by the way he drastically changed tack from his early films to Kolya and this likewise mushy melodrama - perhaps none too committed to serious art. A shame, because one can imagine there being a very fine movie about Czech pilots flying missions out of Britain, only to be incarcerated by the Commies after the war. But this isn't the one. It offers a predictable, soppily romantic tale of male friendship undermined by the love of a woman, heroics overcoming culture clash, and so on. The dogfighs are mostly terrific, however, and the authentically grim '50s scenes hint at what might have been.