Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Mission of Honor Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 4, 2019

The thrill of aerial combat has been a staple of films at least since the very first Academy Award winner for Best Picture, 1927’s Wings. Any number of films followed in the wake (vapor trail?) of that now admittedly kind of quaint seeming enterprise, and the subsequent decades provided jolts of (literal) high octane adrenaline rushes courtesy of such films as (in no particular order) The Dawn Patrol, The Red Baron, Hell's Angels , The Blue Max, Flyboys, Eagle Squadron, Twelve O'Clock High and Flying Leathernecks (to name only a very few). There have been several films that featured aerial combat, at least in passing, in those outings’ documentation of the Battle of Britain, and according to some online sources there are literally scores of films about this epochal showdown (including of course Battle of Britain). Mission of Honor, which was evidently titled Hurricane at some point in its release roll out, joins both of those august categories of cinema as it attempts to tell the probably undervalued story of a Polish squadron of fighters who joined the Royal Air Force to help defend London after their own home country had been overrun by the Nazi hordes. It’s a really interesting story, and parts of Mission of Honor are engaging and even exciting, but the film just doesn’t muster much of an emotional component, and at times seems almost willfully rote in an “old fashioned Hollywood” sort of way (which may actually appeal to some viewers).

Mission of Honor is another supposed “historical” film which might actually work better as a kind of tantalizing introduction to its subject rather than as a fact filled journey of what actually happened. The “hmmm” quotient (in terms of suspension of disbelief) is there right from the get go as Polish pilot Jan Zumbach (Iwan Rheon, Game of Thrones) makes his way through Nazi occupied France in 1940, at one point bribing a Nazi officer with an expensive wristwatch. Aside from this questionable element, the film shows Zumbach’s glove compartment full of expensive wristwatches, as if to suggest this is his strategy for evading capture. Wouldn’t any self respecting Nazi have had Zumbach’s car searched upon stopping him for questioning? As if that weren’t preposterous enough, Zumbach then just kind of walks up to what seems to an RAF biplane in France and steals it, supposedly flying to England to “enlist”. (It should be noted that only in doing background research for this review did I discern that Zumbach was an actual historical character, though how he got to England is considerably more mundane.)

Another “real life” character is John Kent (Milo Gibson, Mel’s son), a Canadian who is tasked with whipping a bunch of perceived “lessers” of Polish descent into a fighting unit. There’s actually some rather interesting ethnopolitical subtext in this film, with the British higher ups pretty much dismissing even the suggestion that a “mere” Pole could fly and fight effectively. This aspect of the film gives it a compelling undertone, but unfortunately Mission of Honor also tends to go a more hoary route by introducing a putative love interest (for more than one character, naturally) named Phyllis (Stefanie Martini), with various soap operatic developments brewing as interstitial air battles interrupt (or vice versa, depending on your personal preferences).

One possible detriment for some viewers may be the fairly fake looking CGI. While it appears some vintage planes may have been used for some cockpit scenes and even some on the ground, take off and landing material, it sure looks like virtually all of the aerial sequences are computer generated, and not always very realistically. That, combined with a somewhat loose attempt at documenting the actual exploits of this valiant squadron, may tend to leave Mission of Honor feeling listless at times. The real story, from what I’ve been able to glean online, is considerably more nuanced and varied than this account may depict. Someone really should look into making more authoritative biographical films about either (or both) Zumbach and/or Kent, as (again, from what I’ve been able to track down online), both men seem to have lived extremely interesting lives. Zumbach in particular seems to have gone on to something of a shadowy mercenary life, and according to some online data I’ve read, he reportedly died under very mysterious circumstances in France in the mid 1980s.

Mission of Honor Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mission of Honor is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. While this was evidently captured with Alexa Minis (according to the IMDb), as perhaps can be made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review, this is another outing that has been tweaked to resemble more traditional film, though I have to say the "digital grain" in this accounting never really looked very natural to me, and I'm uncertain as to whether the fault lies with the technology utilized or the encode, or a combination of the two. This is another Cinedigm release that at least occasionally looked a bit too bright to my eyes, with a resulting blanching of contrast, and somewhat milky blacks. The CGI in this enterprise is often very soft looking (see screenshot 8 for one example). Detail levels on practical items like costumes and props, and even some of the real airplanes that are featured, are typically very good, especially in more brightly lit conditions. There are a few minor instances of banding, mostly noticeable in fade ins and fade outs.

Mission of Honor Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mission of Honor features an occasionally nicely bombastic DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one that really springs into life in the aerial combat scenes, where punches of LFE and good panning activity help to enliven the soundstage. Good use of outdoor locations also helps to elevate noticeable placement of ambient environmental effects as well. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly. There are several foreign languages spoken here (chiefly Polish, German and French), and there are forced English subtitles for those scenes. There are also optional English subtitles for the English language dialogue, and there are a couple of occasions where these two sets of subtitles (in radically different fonts and sizes) overlap if you have the optional English subtitles on.

Mission of Honor Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Q & A with Director David Blair (1080p; 15:39)


• On Set with Iwan Rheon "Zumbach" (1080p; 13:32)


• On Set with Milo Gibson "Kent" (1080p; 1:58)


• On Set with Rosie Gray "Georgina", Stefanie Martini "Phyllis", Emily Wyatt "Kate" (1080p; 2:09) may invite umbrage from some fans simply because the three women are lumped together in one brief "interview", when there isn't a huge female component in the film to begin with.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:54)

Mission of Honor Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mission of Honor has an appropriately honorable focus, but it probably could have used a bigger budget (with more practical flying sequences in particular), as well as a less rote screenplay. Performances are generally very winning (some may not be able to escape visions of Mel Gibson, given how much Milo looks and especially sounds like his famous father), and there's some interesting subtext here about how the Brits perceived "others", even when those "others" wanted very much to help in the Allied war front. Video encounters a few hurdles, but audio is fine, for those considering a purchase.