Come Flyboys With Me

What ho, chaps! It's chocks away for a new motion picture. That awfully spiffy French chap*, Jean Reno, is taking up arms alongside a young Yank called James Franco (it seems he's previously been involved in some sort of story about a spider, the barmy chap) for a drama about World War I called Flyboys. The story apparently follows a group of daring do'ers called the Lafayette Escadrille, those brave blighters from across the Atlantic who answered the call in the Great War and signed up to fly against the Jerry Hun**. Of course, the bally young scamps accidentally signed up to fly for the Frogs** by accident, but extreme youth and all that, eh what? Franco will be playing one of the Yanks, with Reno as the older French chap who acts as a sort of mentor and offers a friendly clip round the ear as needed, don't you know. It's the second role in a row in uniform for both chaps, what with Franco just having finished work in Annapolis, and Reno working on both this and in The Da Vinci Code, where he plays a bally bobby on the beat. Shame he's French*, eh? Otherwise he'd be a shining light for King and Country. Flyboys is an independent film, but has a $60 million budget, which we're pretty sure would pay for quite a few ha-penny buns. Dean Devlin is producing, and promises top-hole fighting scenes. "No one has yet done the ultimate aerial battle film with these kinds of aircraft," said Devlin about the film. While Howard Hughes might disagree (his Hell's Angels probably comes closest to offering decent World War I battles), it's a bally smashing prospect