Shady Lady

Too many Wiki-worthy info dumps and not enough character-enriching detail stops Shady Lady, a docudrama about a team of World War II Australian bombardiers, from cohering into a compelling fiction-documentary hybrid.

It comes as no surprise that the director, Tristan Loraine, comes from a background as an airline captain and a documentarian. Perhaps those jobs make best use of his skills.

The worthy, potentially exciting subject matter would certainly have lent itself to either a straight-on documentary or a seriously budgeted narrative feature. Instead, producer-director-editor Tristan Loraine (he also cowrote the dreadful script with Viv Young) clumsily tries to meld the two approaches - minus the big bucks.

This is a terrific story of American heroes at their very best in world war 2. The film is very well made, great aerial shots, fantastic music. Not to be missed.

Great film, kept me and my wife very entertained last night. Whose the guy at the New York Times who reviewed the film and said it had too much narration and perhaps the director should stick to documentary films? THIS WAS A DOCUMENTARY!! What film did he watch? The NY Times really have some questionable folk working there!!! Great film - loved the air to air combat scenes. For a low/medium budget film I felt it was A1. I agree with LouisaAndrews - This IS the aviation version of Das Boot. Not to be missed.

Recently saw the film in Wallingford in Oxforsdhire. I was intrigued by all the comments about the reviews. All the UK reviews I have read are all very positive, unlike the US reviews listed here on metacrtic. The Oxford Times recently carried this review at: ****/news/opinions/blogs/10076248.Parky_at_the_Pictures__In_Cinemas_29_11_2012_/ which states this 'is a must for anyone interested in the aviation aspect of the conflict in the Pacific' and the review is very fair. I think it was a great film and I applaud the film makers and cast. This should be a BAFTA winner.

I saw the film at the Quad here in New York yesterday and thought it was a fantastic story and very well presented.Then I read that Andy Webster of the New York Times in his review of the film writes, that the film has 'an awkwardly applied musical score; and trite dialogue (

This is the best documentary film I have seen since for years. The space of the film is great, you just get taken along for the mission of all missions. The cinematography of the air combat scenes was fantastic. Not what you normally expect in a documentary. This is a properly researched film and my respect goes to the film director who filmed it exactly where it all happened. Not to be missed.