Hawks makes some pretty rousing war propaganda. I loved the start of this film, with a bomber traversing the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii on December 6th, 1941. They arrive the next morning and lose radio contact in the middle of a transmission. When they get back in contact with someone, they find out about the Pearl Harbor raid. After they land and are sent toward the Philippines, the film becomes a pretty rote, gung-ho piece. The most recognizable star in the cast is John Garfield, who plays a man who failed to become a pilot and plans on quitting the Air Force ASAP - that is, until he finds out about the attack. Then he's eager to pick up a machine gun and mow down some rice-eating mofos! Despite the film's lack of narrative ambition, Hawks' direction is often fantastic. As with most every war film of the period, there's a lot of stock footage of the battles. Hawks does a great job to make it as invisible as possible - you can tell most of the time, but it's as good as I've ever seen it.
