The Red Baron

2/4

Starring: Matthias Schweighofer, Til Schweiger, Lena Heady, Joseph Fiennes

Rated PG-13 for War Violence, Some Disturbing Images, and Brief Suggestive Material

Manfred von Richtofen, better known as “The Red Baron,” was the most famous and feared fighter pilot in World War I.  Racking up more enemy kills than any other pilot in the war, he became a symbol of nationalistic pride for Germany and a mortal enemy for the Allies until his death in 1918, shortly before the end of the conflict.  While his story is certainly interesting, Nikolai Muellerschon’s film is not the one to tell it.  This is a bare bones telling of the story with only the important moments and no character or story development.  It’s as if the running time meant more than telling a complete story.

Rich kid Baron Manfred von Richtofen (Schweighofer) is already the pride of his unit when the film starts.  He’s a skilled fighter pilot who views dogfighting as a hunt; to him, this is merely a life and death game of jousting.  He has his honor (at one point he chastises a comrade for killing an enemy when his plane was already falling to the ground).  Then he meets a pretty nurse named Kate Otersdorf (Heady) who shows him the true horror of war, which those without means are forced to witness.  After that, his taste for battle loses its flavor, but by this point he is already an icon and cannot simply back out.

Or so the iMDb synopsis says.  The film is nowhere as clear as this.  There’s no development of the story, and anything that could build our understanding and sympathy for the characters seems to have been cut out.  It’s a shame, because there are some effective performances and some very exciting scenes of dogfighting.

Matthias Schweighofer is effective as Richtofen.  He has the pride and the ego, but other than that, we don’t know much about him because the script doesn’t allow him anything to work with.  Under the circumstances, it’s the best that any actor could do.  Lena Heady is also effective as Kate, who gives him a hard dose of reality.  Although her accent is forced and she shares no chemistry with Schweighofer, it’s not really her fault.  Til Schweiger provides solid support, as does Joseph Fiennes (who, surprisingly enough, gives a decent performance).

This film could have been so much more, but because this was edited down so much it’s hard to appreciate much from it.  Many of the supporting characters are so undeveloped I had trouble figuring out who was who; there were a number of instances when a character died, I was left wondering, “Who was that?”  This film demanded at least a half an hour more of character development, if not more.  And a script rewrite could have only helped things.

There are some laudable qualities about this film.  It looks great; the cinematography is gorgeous, and the dogfighting scenes are well-executed and thrilling to watch.  With a good script and editor, Muellerschon could make a great film.

I was going to give the film a 2.5 star rating, except that the ending is a huge cheat.  Had I actually been involved in the story, I would have been angry.  We don’t have an ending; we just have a quick scene and short biographies of the characters.  It’s obvious what Muellerschon was going for (in different circumstances this sort of thing can work), but here it’s a cheap cheat.

What’s so frustrating about the film is that it feels like it could have been great.  It’s as if they had a good, epic script, but realized that they didn’t have the money to make it as written so they only filmed the most important scenes.  “The Red Baron” feels more like a greatest hits album than a complete movie.

I would love to see the director’s cut of this movie.  Now that would be something.