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Memphis Belle

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United Kingdom, Japan, United States · 1990
Rated PG-13 · 1h 47m
Director Michael Caton-Jones
Starring Matthew Modine, Eric Stoltz, Tate Donovan, D.B. Sweeney
Genre Action, Drama, War

The "Memphis Belle" is a World War II bomber piloted by a young crew. The crew only has to make one more bombing raid before they have finished their duty and can go home. In the briefing before their last flight, they discover their final target is more grave than expected.

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What are critics saying?

50

Variety by

Offering a romanticized view of heroism drawn from the Hollywood war epic, Memphis Belle is unashamedly commercial. Its moral fabric is thinner than that of other David Puttnam productions.

40

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

Monte Merrick's script is an unspectacular, cliche-riddled voyage from start to finish, with everyone lugging their own tote-bags of facile character idiosyncrasies.

50

Washington Post by Hal Hinson

All of the actors acquit themselves admirably, especially Stolz, who has a star's low-key magnetism, and the jazz stylist Harry Connick Jr., who makes his acting debut here as the drawling rear gunner. But the roles are too generic for anything like real depth. The fight scenes are about what you'd expect; they're competently shot, but even when they deliver thrills, every scene, every passage, is familiar. We've seen it all before.

67

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

The characters in Memphis Belle may have ethnic names, but in spirit the actors are all playing WASPs — fresh-faced, pretty-boy WASPs, the kind that make the little girls swoon. It’s Dead Poets Society Goes to War.

70

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

The vigorous young cast enhances the excitement of the flight sequences, which are spectacular. Movie rah-rah has rarely been this entertaining.

75

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Despite everything I have said, I found Memphis Belle entertaining, almost in spite of my objections. That's because it exploits so fully the universal human tendency to identify with a group of people who are up in an airplane and may not be able to get down again.

50

The New York Times by Vincent Canby

The direction by Michael Caton-Jones, the Englishman whose first theatrical feature was Scandal, is undistinguished here, but the material is not great.

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