Aces High

“High above the trenches 14 days is a long life...This is the 15th day!”

It is the third year of the war, and by early 1917 a British pilot over the Western Front lasts less than a fortnight on average. Major Gresham (Malcolm McDowell) commands a squadron that keeps losing its young men, and each new arrival is a face he has to learn to expect to lose. Jack Gold stages the dogfights in grainy, plain light and keeps the camera close to the faces afterward.