Callum Turner, left, and Austin Butler.Photo:Courtesy of Apple
Courtesy of Apple
The near-twinning of their names may seem like some screenwriter’s notion of cute, but these men are drawn from history: Majors Buck Cleven(Elvis’Austin Butler)and Bucky Egan(The Boys in the Boat’sCallum Turner) would become distinguished leaders ofthe legendary “Bloody 100th,”a bombing squad that was part of the Eighth Air Force.
Buck is more reassuringly stolid than live-wire Bucky, but both are models of courage.
The show is clear-eyed and irony-free, the plot laid out in neat, straight planking. (What would World War II pilots have made of George Clooney’s glibly satiricCatch-22for Hulu?) Then again, even Bucky and Buck might have balked at the show’s grandiose opening titles. The music swells and swells like a bubble of brass.
Not surprisingly, the many scenes of winged combat are superb — chaotic, nerve-jangling, thrilling. Those battles are what will draw and keep viewers.
Masters,which is nothing if not an expansively deluxe production, also deals compellingly with life in the German POW camps and the role of the Black fliers known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
Branden Cook as 2nd Lt. Alexander Jefferson, one of the Tuskegee Airmen.Courtesy of Apple
The most impressive performer is Turner, who has the vaguely opaque sex appeal of a young Richard Gere. Butler, with his studied, plainspoken gravity, is more like a throwback to the old Jimmy Stewart.
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source: people.com
