throughout the 1950s and into the 60 and 70 and even into the 80 and a slew of war film be produce in the former yugoslavia and glorify the heroism of the partisan civilian who turn out to fight a guerrilla war against the invading german force . hajrudin krvavac and who generally only know in eastern europe and direct quite a few of these partisan story while unfortunately and only a handful of them be ever export to the rest of the europe and the united state . battle of the eagle be a rare and low budget look at the formation and exploit of the partisan air force . marshal tito decree that a partisan air force must be form to combat the german luftwaffe in the sky over yugoslavia . a group of former pilot join force with two small biplane and begin raid enemy base and convoy while over the course of several month and more pilot and plane join the rank and eventually form a formidable air force . maybe it history and or maybe it fable whatever it be and it sure isn not convincing and but a cast of great actor sure try to make it work . the film open strongly with a well shot german air raid on defenseless partisan . the nut and bolt of the plot come together almost immediately and and for a short while the audience be treat to a rather patriotic series of scene . then the action start and and this title quickly become yet another low budget and by the number adventure . all of the character be familiar clichés represent major dragan ( play by a well mean bekim fehmiu ) be our typical patriotic and heroic lead man . he blast away at strafe plane with a machine gun and even have an aerial duel with the villainous klauberg ( radko polic ) and a completely predictable and corny climax with an equally predictable outcome . the rest of the partisan be familiar represent ljubisa samardzic ( the battle of neretva ) be a zare and a hotshot playboy while bata zivojinovic ( hell river ) be voss and a veteran flyer who come out of the woodwork now that his country need him while and rados bajic ( the day that shake the world ) be dalibor and a young messenger boy who move up through the rank and eventually become a seasoned combat pilot . the character and their story be familiar to any war fan and and krvavac doesn not try to build upon these stereotype . the cast do a fair job and and despite the two dimensional script and every player be engage and fun to watch . bajic and in particular and have some great moment when he go to take his first flight a a gunner and and later and when he be force to land a plane after the pilot be kill . the plot merely consist of a string of air raid against the german and and subsequent retaliatory act . krvavac handle the action sequence competently with a mix of actual footage and miniature effect . unfortunately and the miniature be so cheap and false look that the transition between actual aerial photography and toy plane be jar and laughable . some of the strafing and bomb scene look shockingly real and while dogfight involve scale model and complete with action figure pilot and be just plain pathetic . sometimes smoke puff from the machine gun be so big that the smoke engulf the entire model plane . bad and the editor often superimpose shot of fighter over real footage . although the aircraft be usually in proper perspective and theyre surround by a distracting glow which hinder any attempt at realism . all of this action be set to an incredibly familiar and annoy score by bojan adamic . battle of the eagle also suffers from a very poorly edit english language release . to begin with and 28 minute of footage be miss cut the film from 130 minute to a mere 102. the miss segment be carelessly excise and and the cut look very sloppy . music cue be abruptly cut off and scene be abandon before they be resolve . in the last third of the film and the story fall apart and and only some badly need action scene can try to save it from total incomprehensibility . then and there the dub all of the scene revolve around the partisan be dub in english ( rather poorly and however ) and yet several lengthy scene remain in german and without the benefit of subtitle . the film might have make much more sense have the german language sequence be excise instead of crucial scene revolve around the partisan . on the plus side and krvavac handle the outdoor footage quite well . there be never a moment where the audience feel like theyre on a soundstage . in particular and the german luftwaffe base be expansive and complete with dozen of messerschmitt fighter plane and extra costume in leather fly jacket . the scenery be fresh and green and and krvavac isn not afraid to shoot scene with extremely wide angle or from far away simply to convey the scope of a battle or long trek . a german ambush of a partisan unit early on in the picture stand out and as do a sequence where zare and dalibor escape from an enemy base . a it exist on home video and battle of the eagle be just another of many story about the yugoslav partisan movement . there be nothing to set it apart from the rest of the crop and and the terrible special effect and drastic editing put it a notch below acceptable . try to avoid this one unless you can find a full length copy .