How you react to this film nearly fifty years after it was made will largely depend on your view on Kenneth More since he virtually is the film.The line between larger than life and in your face blurs with his portrayal of Douglas Bader,a man of his time as much as the other DB,David Beckham is a man of his time. Breezy pipe smoking middle-class heroes were Kenneth More's forte and Douglas Bader was one such.Like his fellow RAF legend Guy Gibson,Bader has been reconstructed in recent years,but More's 1957 portrait accurately reflects his image at the time as a swashbuckling charismatic leader of men,who,despite losing both legs in a flying accident,went on to become a successful fighter pilot in the second world war. A man with such determination is hardly likely to be a shrinking violet and understatement is thin on the ground in "Reach for the sky". More succeeds in the difficult task of making Bader seem likable and bloody-minded at the same time.Many consider it to be his finest film performance. There is a school of thought that contends that every Kenneth More performance consists of nothing more than a variation on his Ambrose Claverhouse character in "Genevieve" and there may be a germ of truth in that.Certainly his predilection for actually saying "Ha,ha,ha",when he laughs can be quite irritating,and his back-slapping blokey heartiness tedious,but he has a sparkle in his eye and a wry grin that is disarming. It may be a characterisation that is now seen as stereotypical,but at least he created it in the first place.
Review of Reach for the Sky
