Wolf Hound movie review

MOVIE TITLE: Wolf Hound

This World War II movie by Lionsgate is now available on Video on Demand.

RATING: R

LENGTH: 2 hours 10 minutes

IN A NUTSHELL:

Inspired by the real-life German special operations unit KG 200 that shot down, repaired, and flew Allied aircraft as Trojan horses, “Wolf Hound” takes place in 1944 German-occupied France and follows the daring exploits of Jewish-American fighter pilot Captain David Holden. Ambushed behind enemy lines, Holden must rescue a captured B-17 Flying Fortress crew, evade a ruthless enemy stalking him at every turn, and foil a plot that could completely alter the outcome of World War II.

THINGS I LIKED:

There are some beautiful aerial shots and impressive cinematography. The first 25 minutes are exciting aerial acrobatics in the sky over German-occupied France.
Real WWII Period Aircraft featured in this film include a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, North American P-51 Mustang fighters, Supermarine Spitfire fighter, Hawker Hurricane fighter, North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, and Messerschmitt Bf 109 (ME 109) fighter. Not a single computer-generated plane is in the movie! That’s impressive!
For aircraft destruction/explosion shots, detailed scale models were filmed and then further enhanced with Visual Effects, but no shot is 100% computer-generated.
To film the skydiving sequences after two weeks of prep, Luke Aikins and Skydiving Double Andy Farrington performed a total of 14 jumps with customized parachute rigs on their helmets in 2 shooting days for the film.
The handsome and buff cast members include James Maslow, Trevor Donovan, John Turk, Michael Wayne Foster, John Wells, Taylor Novak, Michael Parrish, Brian Heintz, and more.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE:

The plot is kind of silly with basically one American defeating a ton of Nazis and saving the day. The movie is said to be based on a true story, but I don’t know enough about the actual history of these events to know how accurate the movie is.
The most compelling moments of the film are when we’re up in the air with the dogfights.
It’s pretty cliched and extremely melodramatic.
Some bad editing moments.
The movie is simply too long for what it offers.
Some of the accents aren’t very good.
One-note characters with very clunky dialogue. Most of the dialogue is grumbled through clenched teeth.
Some of the action sequences and shoot-outs aren’t very good. For example, the Nazis conveniently jump out to attack the Americans one at a time.
There are some really dumb lines like, “Oh man, this does not look good! What are we going to do?” Another line that is spoken quite a number of times is, “No, no, no!”
The blood on people looks really fake.