Posts tagged Paul Johnston

You Won’t Be Enthralled

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

AMELIA is the story of Amelia Earhart, the first woman to perform a number of flying accomplishments in the Twenties and Thirties, and she is played stunningly by two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank.

Unfortunately, if the film were a jet airplane, it would have to be called a flameout, whereas everyone involved with it and many in the audience were hoping that it would soar to wonderful and exiting heights.

Part of the reason is that we know how the story ends, and so there is hardly any suspense at all.

Another part is the construction of the film. It jumps back and forth in time and setting without warning, so that the audience is disoriented along with being dissatisfied.

As a matter of fact, the opening scene takes place in June 1937 in Miami, Florida, at the beginning of Earhart’s ill-fated attempt to be the first woman to fly around the world.

Then we jump back to April 1928 in New York City and see the preparations for Earhart’s first flight across the Atlantic Ocean, in which she didn’t fly the airplane, but was just a passenger, although she was named the “commander”
of the flight over two men who did the actual flying.

Now, some of these jumps are identified by titles for the audience, but others aren’t, and scenes from Earhart’s final flight keep being thrown into the somewhat chronological story at this point.

We see Earhart’s relationship with publisher and promoter George Putnam, played by Richard Gere, and the first time he asks her to marry him, she says, “I don’t want to get married, George. I’m not the marrying kind.”

However, they do get married, only without the part in the marriage vows about “obey.” Earhart says that she can’t promise that.

We also see Earhart’s relationship with flying instructor Gene Vidal, played by Ewan McGregor, the father of Gore Vidal, who appears in the film as a young boy.

Also, many shots of beautiful scenery are thrown in that have nothing to do with the story but just look pretty.

All in all, the film is too melodramatic, but without much drama and certainly without any suspense.

AMELIA might teach you something you didn’t know about Earhart’s life, but you won’t be enthralled with it, whereas I wanted to be enthralled.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”