The unabashed wartime weepie is a lost art these days. So despite its occasional lack of subtlety, Dominic and Ian Higgins’s RAF biopic is a welcome throwback to matinee-style viewing, right down to sundered lovers canoodling in front of starlit canopies. It has an easy swing and self-assurance, thanks in no small part to a well-starched performance by Shane O’Regan as real-life pilot Brendan Finucane, AKA “Spitfire Paddy”.
One of the ranks of Irishmen, and Britons of Irish descent, who despite their homeland’s neutrality took up arms for Blighty during the second world war, Finucane still holds the record for being the RAF’s youngest ever wing commander, having been promoted to the position aged 21. Living up to his compatriots’ rep as the “most belligerent neutrals” around, he soon proved a more than capable scrapper in a fighter plane. Racking up the kills in the Battle of Britain, he is quickly given command of a squadron packed out with bolshie Aussies led by loudmouth “Bluey” Truscott (Chris Kaye). “Luck of the … ” jokes a colleague; “Don’t say it!” interjects Finucane.
The film takes only a cursory fly-by of the issue of the British empire’s spare parts being press-ganged into military service but – conveyed via the reluctance of Finucane’s father (Eoin Lynch) to see his son serve the crown, and the Australians’ griping – there is just enough to give an otherwise lightweight drama a bit of ballast. Even so, The Shamrock Spitfire is really an exercise in nostalgia, with a colourised look that shines in dogfighting scenes full of artful sallies out of cloud cover (demonstrating the directors’ background in digital art).
The soundtrack ladles it on a bit thick: Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War is needle-dropped for aerial combat and, as the squadron lap up the lush green vistas while returning from another successful sortie, Jerusalem is slung in, too. The Higginses ape the keep-calm-and-carry-on era well enough – but are short on the emotional finesse of original masters such as David Lean and Powell and Pressburger. Even so, this is an intriguing military footnote explored with style, and the affable yet somehow melancholic O’Regan is on strong form.
• The Shamrock Spitfire is on digital platforms and DVD from 11 March.
