Click photo to enlarge
Scene from 'Bride Flight'.
Scenic NZ can't save this costly bomb.
> Bride Flight
Directed by: Ben Sombogaart
Cast: Karina Smulders, Waldemar Torenstra, Anna
Drijver, Pleuni Touw, Petra Laseur, Elise Schaap, Willeke van
Ammelrooy, Rutger Hauer
Rating: (R13).
2 stars (out of 5)
Reviewed by Mark Orton.
The most expensive Dutch film ever made is frankly quite
inept.
From Rutger Hauer's cringe-worthy one and only line of
dialogue, Bride Flight amounts to not much more than a
hotchpotch of half-baked story threads and costume changes,
supposedly based on an actual 1953 air race from London to
Christchurch.
We meet Ada, Marjorie and Esther hitching a ride on the KLM
entrant to join future husbands. Events are relayed through a
series of poorly signposted flashbacks when the three women
meet 50 years later at the funeral of Frank; the common
thread tying their lives together.
As one might imagine in a film being touted as a romantic
epic, some none-too subtle relationships form. Eventually,
the nudge-nudge wink-wink gives way and the clothes come off
for some of the cheesiest love scenes to grace the screen.
Bride Flight also plays fast and loose with New
Zealand geography. Shuttling the cast through a location
scout's nightmare, the sites definitely take precedence over
some pretty shoddy performances.
Bride Flight does an admirable turn for Tourism New
Zealand, which has not been slow to embrace the favour on its
website. Perhaps we should just be fortunate that the New
Zealand Film Commission wasn't involved - and that Baz
Lurhman wasn't offered the script.
Best thing: 1950s period detail - the dresses are dead
cool.
Worst thing: Having to endure fellow patrons
discussing every local landmark as they appear on screen.
See it with: Any lover of Mills and Boon.
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