User Reviews

GUNBUS is a fun little British WW1 film featuring a couple of imported American leads who through various rather unbelievable plot twists end up joining a British suicide squadron in their plans to bring down a massive German airship. It starts out as a rather cheesy western in which the central twosome dynamite about a billion banks before they're suddenly in France and ready for action.

This rarely-seen film is rather inconsistent and seems to be suffering from choppy editing and huge budgetary constraints; the ending in particular is extraordinarily abrupt and just cuts to another random scene in an unappealing way. Saying that, I did get a kick out of GUNBUS, enjoying it in much the same way I enjoyed the similarly flawed BIGGLES made during the same era.

Scott McGinnis and Jeff Osterhage verge on the irritating rather than charismatic but there's a solid British cast to back them up, including the reliable Miles Anderson and Rodney himself, Nicholas Lyndhurst. Ronald Lacey is underutilised as a friendly German character. The movie was directed by Zoran Perisic, the Yugoslavian special effects guy who worked on 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and SUPERMAN, and I suspect that directing wasn't really his calling. Still, there's plentiful action here, and the many aerial combat sequences, although cheesy, are good natured and most of all fun.

I have not seen this film since its theatrical release, but for some reason I was reminded of it recently while viewing The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). Both films had interesting concepts that made attempts at historical juxtaposition; both had big budgets for action sequences and special effects; both were ultimate failures. One memorable scene that did show some originality was a depiction of a World War I German "Gotha bomber" as much, much bigger that the real thing, complete with a spiral staircase, a large wheel as on an ocean-going vessel, and a formally-uniformed commanding officer standing on the bridge. I hope that whoever imagined this did go on to bigger and better things.

Gunbus was the UK title of this film. Some trench scenes were filmed at Marston Mortaine in Bedfordshire (Disused LBC clay pits). I know this because I was an extra for some scenes - my one and only venture into the film world. But I was a mere dot on the screen and absolve myself of any responsibility for this dire, almost unwatchable attempt at comedy. 18 million dollars? Well, the catering was good.

I watched this today and am still trying to decide whether the makers deliberately set out to make as rubbish a film as possible in the hope that it might be considered a cult classic. This has nothing going for it. Dire acting, dreadful special effects, laughable model aircraft and comic action. If they spent $18m on this then it must have been on bribes to get it released in the 1st place !!!!. All the actors, some of whom should really have known better, perform so badly it made me wonder if they actually realised how rubbish this is and gave up immediately. If you want to laugh at a truly awful film that shows how to waste money producing dross then this is something you will enjoy. It is just about the worst film I have ever seen.

Simply a waste of an hour and twenty nine minutes I'll never get back... Nothing made sense. The jokes weren't funny, the adventure scenes had no adventure...

Obviously someone needed launder a bunch of cash ... what better than a nonsense film with a budget of 18 million ... there are some comical scenes but mostly is a disjointed mess of nothing to be remembered ... there was a great deal of poking fun at the british royal air force that didn't exist in ww1 ... most of the ww1 flying was done by the lafayette escadrille ...

Not sure why nobody seems to like this movie. The acting is completely okay, the special effects are very 80s but not bad at all, and the story is that of a family-friendly adventure movie about two criminal but basically good-hearted rascals getting from one mess into the next. There's plenty of action as some more or less realistic WWI era aircraft (probably replicas) and several completely crazy, steampunk-like designs, for example an early 20th century car rebuilt as a double-decker airplane, shoot it out with an insanely huge German bomber airship that can launch rockets. Although one of the good guys dies in a bomb attack, which is presented as tragic, and it is implied, although not really shown, that others are shot down in their planes and probably die as well, there is nothing graphic or frightening being shown. It's basically about as violent and as scary as a Star Wars movie (which means not at all really), and much less so than Indiana Jones, for example. I didn't think it was particularly funny, although there were still a couple of scenes that made me laugh out. Which is about what you would expect considering that this isn't supposed to be a comedy but a light action-adventure movie. There's a whole lot of shooting and big explosions throughout the film. Movies like this (and Star Wars) were the reason why I had the misconception as a kid that wars were cool and exciting. I still grew up to become an utter pacifist, so I guess that's alright. I never saw Sky Bandits as a kid though and now is the first time I saw it or even heard of it, in my mid-fourties. Which is a shame really. I liked it now, but I really would have loved it when I was about 10.

Difficult to know what is worse,script,acting,direction or special effects. It is difficult to realise the amount of money that they spent on this. O wonder the original director bailed out at the last moment. It is likely that production went ahead because so much money had alreadybeen spent.

If ever there was a film needing a re-edit it's this one. It lurches awkwardly from one scene to the next with an air of making it up as it goes along. Which is a shame as within all its staleness there is a good film in there somewhere. Okay the acting from the two leads is bad and the dialogue they have to say is worse. There's an attempt to make them lovable rogues but they come across as objectionable idiots. Nonetheless the film is chock full of invention, excellent design and pyrotechnics. It just doesn't flow as it should. Not a bad film as such but could do better. Hence a re-edit would save its potential. BTW Gunbus is available on Amazon Prime but the transfer is awful; VHS picture and distorted sound. Terrific poster though.

My review was written in October 1986 after watching the film at a Times Square screening room.

"Sky Bandits" misfires on all cylinders. Meant as a rollicking World War I adventure, mishmash of a feature is missing a plotoline. Touted as the most expensive (production budget pegged at $18,000,000), indie British film ever, pic doesn't deliver the expected values on screen and has a no-name cast that won'[t help it attract attention domestically or overseas. Distrib Galaxy International has unwisely opted for a national saturation release.

Originally titled "Gunbus" (after the small fighter planes featured), Thom Keyes' unsatisfactory screenplay opens with a reel of two young heroes (Scott McGinnis and Jeff Osterhage) making like Butch Cassidy & Sundance (the early days, that is) in montages of bank robberies. Switch this pointless material headed nowhere the boys are suddenly sent to France to fight in the Great War against the dreaded hun.

Misadventures for the duo include a gam of one upmanship with haughty British flyers, a little sack time with two pretty mademoiselles (Valerie Steffen, Ingrid Held) and a mission to destroy a vast Graf Zeppelin the Germans are using for bombing runs. With dogfighter prowess picked up instantly (heroes decide to try piloting biplanes on a dare), they save the day and are subsequently back in the west blowing up banks quicker than you can say "Blue Max".

Film plods along episodically wit no forward momentum to the sotry: every once in a while there is a dissolve and a new scene has beguyn. Since Keyes' script lacks humor, the boring repartee between the two wooden heroes is downright deadly. What producer Richard Herland and director Zoran Perisic deliver is a succession of pretty but very fake-looking model plane shots or process shnots. The excitement of aerial dogfights, which have entertained audiences in hundreds of war films and served as the inspiration for "Star Wars" is missing.

Cast is tgruly awful, with the only familiar actor, Ronald Lacey, hamming it up and American leads McGinnis and Osterhage lacking the charisma this sort of yarn calls for. Production, including David Watkin's photography, is technically adequate but wholly lacking in verisimilitude. For all the money spent, it would have been more convincing to use stock footage left over from "Hell's Angels" The comic book approach doesn't work.

With Rank, ITC and Thorn EMI as recent examples, experienced British producers have learned how difficult it is to try and compete with the Americans via big-budget projects; modest efforts like "Gregory's Girl" and "My Beautiful Laundrette" have been more successful. "Sky Bandits" will undoubtedly reinforce this conventional wisdom.

I stumbled across this movie on Prime while I was looking for some noise in the background while I was working. There are some technical errors that make the movie difficult to watch as a history buff. Some of the weapons did not exist until at least 20 years later.

As a film it was entertaining but the inaccuracies really detracted from the movie for me.

I found this tongue in cheek romp rather enjoyable. It is not a serious film, and was never meant to be. I would put it in the same bracket as "Rocket Man". It was similarly set in the first world war, with two Americans helping the British against the Germans.

The two Americans were made to enroll in USA call up for volunteers, by the owner of the bank as punishment for trying to rob his bank.

It made me laugh out loud on several occasions. I was very surprised to see Nicholas Lyndhurst, Rodney from "Only fools and horses" He played the part of chalky an aircraft mechanic.

It did get a bit surreal when the pilots mess was revealed as a circus big top tent, complete with performers.

On the whole worth watching.

saw this movie in the theater when it came out in 86 just a fun to watch romp set in ww1 that the whole family can watch is it full of state of the art special effects? no but they did use real planes and pilots. you get a glimpse of what it was like during that time period. throw in a dash of irreverent comedy. a spoon of slapstick,and and a wacky cast as they set out to fight Germany . if you like the older movies operation petticoat, wackiest ship in the army

or up periscope. then this is your kind of movie. as the title says 2 bank robbers escape the law by joining the army and follows them on their adventure as they stumble through WWI

I had not seen this flick since I was a lad renting any movie i could get my mitts on. I recently watched it on movies for men! and enjoyed it as a passable time waster. Two cowboy buddies go from blowing up banks in the old west to fighting in the Great War. The action is what we want and luckily thats what you get with tons of explosions and some cool aerial dogfights against a humongous zeppelin. There are real planes used over the lush British countryside but a lot of scenes are back projections and do not convince but are fun. This is a boys own B movie with derring do at the forefront. The Germans are boo hiss and the cowboys gung-ho. It reportedly had a £12million budget. The film is full of inventive ideas but doesn't hold together to well. The cast does okay with a secondary role for Nicolos Lyndhurst(Only fools and horses) as Chalky. If your a B movie fan of the eighties chops away. It would make a nice double bill with Biggles - Adventures In Time.

As others have noted, this movie is filled with bad effects, flat acting and any number of other problems. Yet there are many moments where it seems like the movie might work. But just when things start to get rolling, the timing goes out and suddenly its the most boring thing you've seen.

Consider the opening. It starts with a bunch of fast action scenes of our heroic duo blowing up banks one after another in quick succession. One of these consists of nothing more than throwing a bundle of dynamite in the door, causing the entire building to explode into matchsticks. Dumb, but fun.

And then for no reason I'll ever understand, the next heist is shown in excruciating detail... this time they're drilling holes into the safe and setting up this elaborate system for pouring in nitro. I don't know how they managed to do it, but they dragged this scene on for minute after minute of excruciating nothingness as the two banter on mindlessly, setting themselves up all-too-obviously to get caught. The entire movie dies right there, the pace just kills.

And it keeps doing this, over and over. Then we're in Europe, where there's a bunch of fast scenes while they shoot down a bomber with their pistols and then fly off. An excruciating scene follows. And again, and again and AGAIN. Over and over it looks like they just might pull it off and save it, only to bore you to death seconds later.

Bizarre!

I bought this movie for a laugh and boy did I get one, well more than one to be honest. In the UK this movie is called Gunbus, which is a much better title than Sky Pirates, especially as there are no pirates in this film or anything even resembling a pirate.

Its badly acted and directed and the script is very dodgy (I think I saw a few swastika's in there and this film is set during WW1 predating the nazis by a long way!) It is however very easy to laugh at as it so utterly pathetic. Even the "flashy" titles cant save this stinker.

A movie starring cowboys and made by them by the looks of things!

When two cowboys are captured in the old west trying to rob a bank, they are exiled to the front lines of World War I to fight alongside the British. They get into a bet to see if they can fly a Gunbus, they do but then end up in another base under an officer who is determined to hunt down a German airship.

I taped this film on the basis of the catchy name (it was called Gunbus in the UK) and I didn't really know what to expect from it in terms of plot, action etc so my expectations were pretty low. Surprisingly my low expectations were never even met once. The plot jumps around from the old west to WWI with little explanation, before we know it, the heroes are flying missions on German aircraft (despite not being able to fly). The film gets sillier towards the end as cars, broken aircraft etc are pieced together for an attack from the British – it would be laughable if it wasn't so bad.

The effects are what you'd expect from a cheap film of this period – awful. The back projections of the sky spins all over the place and the little model planes just look daft. The action stutters simply because it is so silly. Like another reviewer said, some of the designs are imaginative and daring (the big airship for one) but the effects aren't up to the job and the action just makes the whole thing silly.

The acting is pretty poor and isn't helped by the total lack of characters in the film. The lead actors have a bit of banter between them at the start but they stutter as they get lost in the silly mess that comes about. The only interesting things in the cast are a couple of pretty women, some really, really poor English accents and an appearance by Nicholas Lyndhurst from Only Fools & Horses.

Overall this is a pretty poor film. I'm sure some users will see it as trashy fun but I only see it as trashy. It doesn't really have anything of value going for it and all you're left with is the cracks in the film.