The Shepherd

Christmas Eve, 1957. A young RAF pilot takes off from a base in Germany to fly home to England across the North Sea. The aircraft loses electrical power: no radio, no compass, nothing to steer by. The fuel is going down and there is only water below. Then a Mosquito left over from the Second World War appears alongside and signals with its wing for him to follow. The film is a short and hangs its weight on one question: where did the help come from. The answer is never stated, only settled into place in the last scene. Iain Softley wrote and directed, from Frederick Forsyth's 1975 story. Ben Radcliffe plays the young pilot and John Travolta the pilot of the Mosquito. Travolta also produced, and his interest is not new: he optioned the story thirty years earlier, meaning to play the young pilot himself. The art department built an exact replica of the Vampire, and the flying on screen combines the real aircraft, the replica and computer imagery. It went out on Disney+ on 1 December 2023. Who it is for: anyone who likes the Christmas film tradition and postwar aviation stories. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a surprise. The ending is guessable in the first ten minutes, and the short running time leaves nobody with any depth.