Mission of Honor (II) (2018) User Reviews

A true Story that needed a better budget .

[ashwetherall1 · 6/10 · 8 September 2018]

As I have spent most of my adult life living around the Northolt area I am very aware of the debt my country owed to the brave few who protected Britain from the Luftwaffe in the summer of 1940. Northolt base was the home to 303 Polish squadron this film is an almost fitting tribute to those courageous men. Unfortunately, although a well intended film, I think it could have been so much better if given a bigger budget, This really looks like a low budget made for TV movie. If the makers had given a little more care and attention to the story line which was a a bit 2 dimensional as it depicts The British pilots as arrogant toffs that hated the Pols and the Pols as melancholy aggressive drunks. This was mostly false as the fatigued British pilots and officers were aware that they needed all the help they could get. My grandfather told me that the Polish pilots were always polite and good humoured when dealing with the locals and other members of the armed forces in the area. This is represented in a small scene , but nowhere else.

Most of the performances are good and save a rather bland script that could have done with a little more spit and polish.

This could also be said for the special effects used to recreate the aerial battle sequences. The CGI went from OK to bloody awful video game graphics. But I could over look this as despite the films flaws as it is a fascinating true story and well worth a watch.

A solid movie

[spoku-1 · 7/10 · 23 August 2018]

I have just come back from the cinema and wanted to share my thoughts. I don't want to spoil anything so I'm keeping the plot to the minimum. The movie is based on true accounts of the finest of Polish squadrons, the 303 squadron formed in RAF, Northolt. It tells the bittersweet story of people who had nothing but themselves and their skills to offer in the fight against Germans during WWII. (Note, I'm not writing Nazis. These were Germans of that era). Having been thought of like the scum of the earth, these men proved that given the opportunity they can be incomparable in the air battles while many English pilots weren't even combat ready. The movie plays itself a bit slowly, CGI isn't the best you can get these days, there are many fictional subplots interwoven by the ones responsible for the screenplay, also there are some emblems missing from the planes, most notably the Polish checkered logo and Donald Duck from Zumbach's (Rheon's) plane. Despite those slight omissions, and some fictitious plots it is quite enjoyable. It takes itself seriously, without pompous heroism nor wallows in martyrdom. It is a well organized, quite serious flick that makes you think. Most people didn't realize it at the time but Poland lost due to the fact that before the war there were only 20 years of freedom, hence the military was not ready to deal with Germans' forces. There were atrocities committed all over Poland, but some people were able to flee and add to the allied effort, it's great that they're getting the recognition they had deserved. I highly recommend it to anyone, even though it might be a bit uncomfortable for some British to watch.

British makers rightly honouring the Poles, while wrongly doing down their own country

[jrarichards · 7/10 · 31 August 2018]

The best thing about "Hurricane" is that it was made, since there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the Poles made a disproportionate (i.e. daring, innovative and super-efficient) contribution to the winning of the Battle of Britain by the RAF in 1940, and that that contribution is somewhat under-covered in films, and somewhat under-remembered by those who should remember it (and be grateful for it).

I say "somewhat" because, while they may be a bit vague on the details, few middle-aged, elderly or old Brits (as well as pretty much everyone from the era now lost to us) are unaware of the valour of the Poles as soldiers, sailors or in the air and - indeed, as I was growing up in the England of the 1970s and 1980s, there was no question that the stereotype of Poles was positive, and that word number 1 associated with it was "brave".

So if this movie has a starting point, it might be in educating the young or the foreign uninitiated, as well as supplying more details, impressions and emotions to a story known in part only by most.

If a further goal is to make the Poles feel good about themselves - and remembered - that's OK; but if that means making the British look worse ... well that's only OK when it relates to what we might call "the truth", as opposed to things purporting to be truth which aren't.

So, OK, there WAS some hostility towards Poles (and the smaller number of Czechs), some jealousy of their skills and good looks and battle-hardened credentials, some belief - probably justified - that they were chaotic and under-disciplined. Then, given a Mr Atlee as the new PM who maybe still hadn't fully learnt to hate communism and ally "Uncle Joe" Stalin as he ultimately did with a vengeance, it is true that Poles were excluded from the vast June 1946 Victory Parade through London - much to Britain's shame, but nevertheless somewhat/minimally accountably given irreconcilable problems with determining if the real Poland was now the Polish state in exile or the Soviet puppet-state back home.

But I knew Poles, and knew of Poles when growing up in Britain because many stayed after the War - in fact over 120,000 - later joined by family members and others. So if the film is trying to suggest it was normal or typical for brave Poles who had fought with Britain to be sent back home to suffer or die at the hands of the communists, that is simply not true - thanks to Churchill's House of Commons "pledge" of February 27th 1945, the Polish Resettlement Corps founded in 1946, the UK's Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 and the Committee for the Education of Poles set up in 1947.

Sadly, when a couple of sentences appeared on the screen after the film's end and before the roll of the credits, the opportunity to mention the above measures - considered exemplary by many around the world - was lost.

I don't think Director David Blair behaved correctly at all in this way.

Otherwise his film is moderately well-acted (though Iwan Rheon as the real-life ace Jan Zumbach speaks (his native) English with a Russian, not Polish accent. Milo Gibson as "Kentowski" is a sympathetic character. The recreations of battles are OK, especially when they make it powerfully clear how one minute a pilot could be flying along in "heavenly" conditions, only for this to deteriorate with no warning at all into a plummet towards land or sea, to blood appearing for nowhere, to parts of a plain coming off, or to death itself. This all makes its strong impression.

But this could have been a film to unite and celebrate. Instead, it stokes some Polish-British division after all this time, and feeds into the worst and most negative Polish stereotypes about Brits, undeservedly to a great extent since it conceals the main part of the truth about Poles in Britain in the aftermath of the War.

Not right.

Eighty Years for the movie Industry to tell this story

[deeana-78424 · 19 October 2019]

After eighty years of silence from Hollywood around the most inspiring epic story of WWII, suddenly in 2018 two movies were released about the Polish 303 Squadron based at RAF Northolt for the Battle of Britain. This little known story that surely deserves to be told, is based on the real story of the Polish Government moving itself and their military to Britain after Poland was invaded by the Germans in the west and the Russians in the east. But Does MISSION OF HONOR do this story justice? With tarty WAFs, bullying snobbish RAF pilots, and dispicable RAF officers, the inspirational core of the story seems to get lost in a series of unfortunate events, which should be that these highly skilled pilots decimated the Luftwaffe, outshone the British pilots, flew day and night in all weather daringly downing double the number of the planes that the British downed, and turned the tide of the war by preventing Hitler from invading Britain, and therefore making it possible for the Americans to have bases there. Perhaps this story has not been told in war movies because the West is ashamed of the ending. While the allies won the war, Poland became a satellite of the Soviet Union, and the Polish Military were not allowed to be a part of the Victory Parade because it would have offended Stalin. This movie is unsurprisingly anti-British in its bias, but does not allude to how the Polish pilots were appreciated by the common people of Britain as their exploits were heralded on the radio and Pathe News.

fine but nothing special

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 12 November 2018]

It's 1940 and France is about to fall. Polish fighter pilot Jan Zumbach (Iwan Rheon) steals a plane and escapes to England. He joins a group of international fliers eager to fight the Nazis and resists being relegated to the bombers. Witold Urbanowicz is one of the first Poles allowed to fly a fighter plane. Eventually, they are allowed to form the legendary No. 303 Squadron. Phyllis Lambert works in the RAF war room.

This starts out well. The story of the Polish fliers is compelling. Not everything is the best. The CGI aerial dogfights are not the highest quality. There are some tangential plot elements that muddle the story. It's not unexpected to have a racist British officer in this movie but it pushes every villainy onto him by making him a sexual harasser. He goes off the deep end unnecessarily. The short flashbacks are fine to lay down the groundwork for their motivations but they need to be longer to fill out their stories. As a traditional war movie, this is fine but nothing special.

Glad the Poles were there

[mattbuxton · 6/10 · 8 September 2018]

Thank god the Polish fighter pilots were there to help us win the war, don't know if Britain would have survived without the 303 Squadron. They stopped the Nazis invading us!

Its amazing how a handful of pilots turned the war.

A missed opportunity to make a worthwhile historical film

[dave_garfield-70593 · 3/10 · 9 November 2018]

Where to begin? This film is disappointing on so many levels.

To begin with the script must have been written by a teenager, or at best a millennial with no appreciation for how people spoke on the 1940s. Time and again words were used that brought me up with a bump and a cringe. "Thanks for the invite" is a horrible late 20th century replacement for "Thanks for the invitation". It just grates. And no one ever said "Roger that" in that era. There are other examples but I gave up on hoping for script authenticity after a short while.

But the absolute worst of this film was the total ignorance of aerial combat in the Second World War. Fighter pilots never EVER flew straight and level for more that 5 seconds at a time, and they were constantly swivelling their heads to scan the sky for the enemy. So to see Hurricanes and ME109s flying in a straight line with the pilots staring fixedly ahead like Sunday day-trippers in the middle lane of an empty motorway was risible in the extreme.

The combat scenes were created in CGI by kids who, again, have no clue as to how it actually took place. The Hurricane couldn't out-fly the ME109. The latter could out-climb even the more agile Spitfire, and though it couldn't out-turn a Spitfire it certainly could the Hurricane. So we were treated to scenes of 109s flying straight and level while Hurricanes picked them off and blew them out of the sky. That just didn't happen. Actually, the CGI fighter sequences in Star Wars were more akin to how it was, not the pedestrian sequences we were obliged to watch.

In fact anyone who has read anything about the Battle of Britain knows that the Hurricane was always sent to engage the slow-moving bombers. The German fighters that we're sent to protect them were taken on by the Spitfires. The high kill score for Hurricane squadrons was for bombers; hugely important because it was the bombers that did the damage on the ground. But of course that doesn't chime with the desired picture of sky-jockeys in one-on-one combat.

Oh, and the skin of the Hurricane was FABRIC not metal, so the sight of bullets spanging off the metal sides of these planes was completely incorrect. It's the Spitfire that had an aluminium monocoque fuselage.

And the women at the plotting table? The idea that one of them would countermand the instructions of the senior officer in charge of deploying the squadrons is ridiculous.

This film was a juvenile attempt at heroic storytelling that dismally failed, and made a bit of a mockery of the real Polish heroes of the RAF. The storyline was weak, the dialogue written by people with a tin ear for the period, and combat sequences that would have been acceptable if someone on the team had done just one hour's research.

And the final engagement between the hero's Hurricane and the 109? I won't deliver a spoiler but it was absolutely ridiculous.

For shame.

Polish Top Guns

[lavatch · 7/10 · 22 May 2019]

In the bonus track of the DVD of "Mission of Honor" (a.k.a. "Hurricane"), the film's director, David Blair, described how he wanted to take a little-known World War II story and make it credible and spontaneous, avoiding the clichés of World War II films from the 1950s. The goal was to tell the story of the 303 Squadron of brave Polish air pilots and their acts of self-sacrifice during the Battle of Britain in 1940.

The film developed effectively the situation of the intrepid Polish airman who were exiled from their country after Hitler's invasion and rapid conquest in 1939. Flashback sequences relive the horrors of the Blitzkrieg and the atrocities committed by the Hitler. The film occasionally alludes to the role played by Stalin, but does not describe how the Poland was carved up between Germany and the Soviet Union in the early stage of the war. It was that shocking partition that had driven the pilots out of the country and led them to Great Britain to serve the allied cause.

The film may have gone slightly overboard in showing the pent-up frustrations of the men of 303 Squadron. It was not entirely clear why the airman, especially their leader Jan Zumbach, would be so rude to their British hosts when their achievements were honored in a special celebration. They were all aware that the only chance of retaking their nation was the defeat of the Third Reich. The special event honoring the pilots was marred by their rude behavior.

The film developed an interesting set of women's characters. The women were instrumental in the radar tracking of the invading Luftwaffe. Phyllis was the skilled interpreter of the data, and she and her female colleagues used their shuffleboards like skilled roulette croupiers.

Of course, there was a romantic connection, but, unfortunately, it did not have the sizzle of "Top Gun." Phyllis and Zumbach have an attraction and an affair. But there was a strange moment when Zumbach seemed to feel betrayed and asserted (falsely) that Phyllis would always belong to the cad Rollo. This made no sense in the logic of the film and militated against the director's goal of credibility.

The filmmakers did their homework in depicting how at the end of the war, the brave Polish airman were not allowed to repatriate in England. This was part of the secret conditions of the Yalta conference that led to mass deportations and the deaths of innocent patriotic people, due to Stalin's ruthless treatment of what he deemed "collaborators."

Still, the film was successful in bringing to the screen the story of the highest scoring group of bombardiers in the RAF. The 145 pilots of the 303 Squadron were responsible for 20% of the successful RAF missions. While the pacing of the film was a little sluggish, it was nonetheless a solid depiction of a group of unsung heroes of World War II.

Well intentioned, poorly executed

[electrocution_ca · 4/10 · 4 February 2019]

As mentioned elsewhere, the Poles deserve better than this - many of the CGI kills were highly improbable - tailplanes don't just blow up - there's no fuel down there.

That said, it is worth a watch. A better film in this genre is Dark Blue World, but it revolves around Czech pilots with real spitfires.....

Overall Very Enjoyable

[buckm-27789 · 7/10 · 27 July 2019]

World War II movies are perhaps my favorite genre and I've probably seen 85%+ of the WWII films produced over the years. While this film is not on the same level or even in the same league as 1969's Battle of Britain (and honestly that are no other battle of Britain films extant that are in the same league as the 1969 Battle of Britain film), I did find Hurricane (2018) to be very enjoyable. Period war movies are so very difficult to make, but the filmmakers did an exceptional job recreating the authentic look and feel of 1940's England and the RAF. You'll be very pleased to find that the story-line, though highly dramatized, does provide you, the viewer, with the proper historical perspective and background of World War II's Battle of Britain, and the formation of the Polish Squadron 303. The acting overall is very competent, sadly though with the exception of the lead female actress, who I just did not fine to be such a good fit relative to the performance of other actors in the film, plus the oddity that her character really suffers from having bleached blonde hair and a plethora of dark brown roots, which is something (women dyeing hair) that wasn't socially acceptable in 1940's Britain. The story line does , but only very slightly, suffer historically in the way it portrays British RAF officers being hateful and antagonistic towards the Polish volunteers. By all accounts the Brits during this time were deeply grateful to the military help of each and every allied soldier, sailor or airman, if not for anything else than for Britain being entirely on their own at that time while fighting the Nazis. The aerial combat and dogfight scenes are mostly competently done in CGI, though could have been so much better had the CGI artists been aware that aircraft engines cause the airplanes vibrate and that it is impossible for a plane and pilot to fly in perfect formation without being tossed around by wind gusts regardless of altitude. The only other primary fault I would find with this film is the screenwriter's use of anachronistic dialogue, i.e. having a character state that a squadron is coming "on-line" or having a squadron leader during flight order his pilots to stay off "com's". Neither of those modern day/internet age terms would have been used in the 1940's. Otherwise, I was surprised to see some scenes showing the Polish pilots appearing away from their airfield dressed in civilian clothes, as that is something that would have been so unlikely since wearing the uniform was akin to a badge of honor, while those of fighting age not wearing a uniform were very suspiciously as skulkers. Except for those few flaws, Hurricane is a very compelling film which justly shows the courage and determination of a group of Polish pilots who had lost everything due to the Nazi destruction and subjugation of their homeland, and who wanted desperately to make the German Luftwaffe pay in blood for their barbarity.

A poor movie

[timdinchhammonds · 2/10 · 11 September 2018]

A great story of the heroism and skill shown by Polish pilots deserves a much better telling. In fact it has already been done by channel four with their docudrama, "Bloody foreigners" which tells the story more concisely in half the time, with personal recollection of some of the pilots themselves and dramatisation. Hurricane is so low budget, in fact I suspect more of the budget was spent on sandwiches than the CGI. A lack of characterisation of the principal players and of the very, real hurdles put in front of talented but "Foreign" pilots, make this a very lazy effort at best. The only upside, maybe, that the viewer who's interest in this story has been piqued, will probe further elsewhere and may, more fully, appreciate the sacrifice , talent and bravery of our erstwhile Polish allies.

I "love" when experts review a movie - not

[kenfromcanada · 8/10 · 8 September 2018]

Watch this movie. The total budget was likely what was spent just for catering a 'skyscraper' movie I wasted a few hours watching. I AM an aficionado of WW2, I can spot mistakes. AND? The story of these brave men is not well known - a pity. There were several groups of pilots from several occupied countries who made it to Britain and fought like lions. The poles, were brave - and nuts. Some of the crazy scenes - are true (not a spoiler). The effects - yah, not up to Hollywood top CGI, but, enjoy a true story with good acting,

Much better than a 5.4 rating

[quackzy · 7/10 · 25 August 2019]

And someone rating this movie has commented that it is anti-British and shows the British in a bad light. I completely disagree. This movie does a fair job of showing what it's like when east Europeans, in this case Poles, are mixed with British blue-collar fighters. Sometimes it Just ain't pretty.

Terrible Script

[johnnydub69-1 · 2/10 · 11 September 2018]

There's definitely a story worth telling here, but the people behind this film have made an almighty hash of it.

The script is awful, utterly awful - littered with modern euphemisms and liberally injected with clanking scenes of #metoo nonsense.

The characters are paper thin, and mostly unlikable.

The effects are poor and the choreography of the air battles is disjointed.

If you want a good film about the Battle of Britain, go watch the 1969 film "Battle of Britain"

Pretty Good...

[darcar-52323 · 7/10 · 13 April 2019]

Pretty Good for being a new ww2 movie. The visual Effects are 7/10

Too miserable and too much Brit bashing to be rated as good.

[richard-llewellyn-jones · 6/10 · 5 April 2020]

My landlord who owned a house at the end of one of the runways at heathrow was one of these pilots. He was a nice guy who loved planes and was quite similar in temperament to my next door neighbour who was an English spitfire pilot. So I can't see the need for the Brit bashing which was the core of this film. There have been other black and white films that highlighted the contribution of the Polish pilots in a much more upbeat fashion than this one, like "Reach for The Sky". We won the war together and that should not be forgotten. So no more of this Brit bashing please from people who have no idea how the people of those days used to behave. Everyone was much more positive and chirpy back then even though they went through horrors while today everyone has it easy and are moaning and groaning about how hard done by they are as shown in the film.

An opportunity missed

[daidouglas · 2/10 · 11 February 2019]

I have been a researcher of the Battle of Britain all my life. I have dozens of books on the subject, from "The Narrow Margin", a tome which was used as the basis of the 1969 film, "The Battle of Britain", to many individual accounts, including Ginger Lacey, Geoffrey Wellum, Tom Neil, etc. It was the film which set my life in its direction, and I subsequently served 30 years in the RAF, as Aircrew.

I also read the 303 Squadron book. It was very clear from early on in this film that no one of importance in the making of it had ever read the book, nor had they watched the quintessential film of the era, "The Battle of Britain". Had they done so, the pilots in the aerial sequences would not have appeared zombie-like, and the painfully slow manoeuvring of the computer-generated aircraft would have been rejected. I know they hadn't read the book, because if they had, they would surely have included an incident a few days after the squadron became operational, when their huge successes were initially disbelieved. A senior RAF officer followed them up on a scramble to see for himself. His report went along the lines of, "I don't know where they learned to fly like that, but it wasn't the RAF....I've never seen flying or fighting like that in my life. In the future, if they claim 10 kills, you had better believe them." The script was too modern, with many millennial phrases, the character of Phyllis (played by the lovely Stefanie Martini) insisted on strutting around in uniform with her hair down (never allowed, not even up to the present day), and appeared to be connected to some communications network far removed to the one she should have been monitoring in the plotting room. In reality, all she would have heard were simple instructions, like, "303 sqn, square E17", etc, and she would have moved the plot of the squadron to that square on the grid. This is a true story which should have been told much sooner than this, and it is a shame that they made such a mess of making the film. To anyone who wants to see a simple shoot-em-up, no doubt the film will suffice, but to anyone who cares about the past, it is a travesty.

Great story poorly represented.

[a_mobbs · 6/10 · 2 February 2019]

I was just so disappointed with the dog fight scenes as the CGI's were like scenes from Thunderbirds. If you can ignore this, it's a half decent film.

Brave men.....dull film

[doorsscorpywag · 1/10 · 8 September 2018]

Giving credit where it's due the use of Polish in the film from actors who don't normally speak Polish was worth a star.

The rest was worth 0.

Pilots with their oxygen masks hanging off during combat so we can see who is who was ridiculous. Speaking from the side of their mouths to issue instructions and congratulate each other was insulting to the audience and the pilots who flew during the Battle Of Britain.

The planes flew like something out of a Star Wars movie and they seemed to have endless ammunition. Yes I know they only had one Hurricane but the beauty of CGI is you can make it look real if you put some effort in. These were Hurricane's not space ships.

Red Tails did the same when they tried so badly to tell the story of brave black US airmen. That was an insult to brave men and this was as well.

The story of one of the best squadrons during the BOB was boring and the love story aspect even worse. Even casting Ramsay Bolton could not make it interesting.

The British film Battle Of Britain told the story of the pilots and ground personnel wonderfully. They even acknowledged the many non British pilots who fought and died with a particular emphasis on Polish pilots.

Don't waste any time on this tripe watch BOB instead and see how to make a proper film.

Who Hates Poles?

[whernstadt · 7/10 · 21 September 2018]

In 1940 the Polish Ambassador to the USA cut the ribbon on the Pulaski Skyway between Newark and NYC. In 1941 when I was six years old, I met him and his wife a former Follies girl, as was my mother, living in a basement apartment next to the 3rd ave El. I met their 2 sons one of whom was a pilot who flew American warplanes in the Pacific. He sent me pictures of P-51s. Unfortunately he was killed fighting the Japs.

In America Polish people were well regarded, and my best mate in high school was Polish, and ended up being my room mate as a college freshman.

I did not know the 303 story till I watched download of this story. Poorly written but well acted.

Maybe the Brits remembered from history class that Pulaski helped General Washington's troops fight the Brits in the revolutionary war and still considered America a colony, and Poland a throwaway?

Brave Polish service in WW2 needed to be told even if poorly written and directed.

Shame on those giving this a low rating

[Too-Tall-for-the-Desert · 8/10 · 20 October 2019]

Yes it's not perfect, but it's a great story of bravery, well told and exciting throughout.

Did the British do anything in the Battle of Britain?

[gra-94234 · 6/10 · 11 February 2019]

Is it a Brexit thing or just anti British in general?

Disappointed

[michaeljklock · 2/10 · 5 December 2018]

I was looking forward to watching this movie, but quickly disappointed with the really low budget special effects. I mean REALLY low budget. It's not something I would watch again. The 1960s movie Battle of Britain has better effects.

Better than expected!

[toneybrooks2003 · 7/10 · 16 March 2019]

I recommend this movie not because it's a great film - it isn't - but because of its historical value. Not much is remembered today about the RAF's Polish pilots, who were hugely responsible for neutralizing the Luftwaffe and perhaps saving England from a Nazi invasion.

In any event, the film certainly does not deserve these low ratings! Aside from the history, it's a well filmed, acted and entertaining movie.

Could only be made now

[homerbrain · 6/10 · 8 February 2019]

Our brave Polish heroes fight a long battle against English intransigence and hostility in an allegory of the horrors of Brexit, truly making this a movie of our times. While stylistically identical to Star Wars in terms of action, we are nevertheless rebooted in a strange Dr Who parallel world of only stiff, straight white people, dramatically reminding us that without people of colour and gender non-conformity society slides to fascist and imperialistic tendencies. The Poles down to earth charm and obvious virility wins the hearts of the working class feminists struggling with authoritarian and oafish masculinity. The villainous English painfully learn that a closed border is a closed mind, and no amount of strafing immigrants with their war machine will stop hope.