Rent Operation: Wolf Hound (2022)

Entertaining WWII Warplanes Movie with Action & a Small Kernel of Truth - Operation: Wolf Hound review by PV

OK so this is one of those B-movies produced independently and filmed in the USA, with the help of air museums who lend the planes, I suppose! Still the budget here is adequate to create some decent plane chases and dogfights. The BEST film for that is THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN (1969) but at least this film does action. Some nice big explosions and bangs! CGI is fine as it is mixed with real planes.

It is all blarney of course though based on a kernel of truth. Kampfgeschwader 200 (KG 200) ("[Air] Combat Squadron 200") was a German Luftwaffe special operations unit during World War II. The unit carried out especially difficult bombing and transport operations and long-distance reconnaissance flights, tested new aircraft designs and operated captured aircraft BUT it seems they did not use captured aircraft in allied colours as trojan horses. They did use captured Boeing B-17s in Nazi Luftwaffe crosses on the wings to drop parachuters and thus maybe use that to their advantage - as seen from the ground, that would look like an allied plane. THIS is the plane that gained the US nickname WULFE-HOUND. It was interned in Spain

What was threatening London in 1944 and after were the V1 and V2 rockets made by slaves in occupied Holland. They killed 5000 in London (and more in Antwerp) and left 250,000 homeless in London with the great damage they did - they contributed greatly to the postwar housing crisis. Their inventor,. SS man Werner Von Braun and his team were taken to the USA to work for NASA and put man on the moon. SO watch a doc or a feature about that for reality.

This is fantasy, but exciting in a sort of pantomime Nazi versus good guy Captain America sort of way. The characters are pretty thin though - we are supposed to care that one died (esp at the end) but by then I could not remember which one he was!

Some truth here - German pilots DID shoot down allied airmen (all men no women) parachuting to earth, or locals murdered them on the ground, beat them to death, after raids by Brits and Americans. Just horrific.

Otherwise all very silly, especially the absurd inclusion of a female prisoner and 2 black American ones in a Nazi prison cell. For a start, prisoners were never held together. Women would not be mixed with men,. the few taken, such as resistance partisans etc. AND as for African Americans, hardly any died in the Second World War because the ones there were got kept well back behind the lines, often as medics and auxiliary staff (Maybe the segregated US army did not trust them with guns!) Anyway, good for them as mostly they survived. Any taken prisoner? I doubt it. SO that is silly wokery too. just stop it!

It is ALL very silly, such as when a Nazi is disarmed but then the US airman does not bother taking his gun from the forest floor. but leaves it behind so the Nazi can pick it up and shoot at him as he runs through the forest. Hmmm. And LOTS of on the nose dialogue, with lone characters SAYING how they feel, what they are doing, and thinking and what they plan to do.

BUT oddly likeable and watchable, hence 2.5 stars rounded up. And the constant orchestral strings music works too.