That all-purpose crypto-Nazi, General Von Talon (Tim Curry), hums Wagnerian themes as he busies himself with his wardrobe. When interrogating Mercury he growls the inevitable warning, "We have ways of making you squawk." Ricky Gervais is the movie's potentially most complex character, Bugsy, a seedy, cynical con artist and shirker who deserts his mates, then reconsiders and returns to the fold. Why the change of heart we are never told.
For all its feathery frivolity, there is no escaping the repugnant fact that Valiant is a war movie for kids. To be sure, the war being waged by Valiant and his crew is the so-called "good war," and Squad F is on the side of the angels. But it's a war nonetheless. What might Valiant be trying to tell us by the fact that nobody in this version of World War II seems to suffer?
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