classicsoncall I watched this film in preparation for a historical presentation by the Major General Irene Trowell - Harris Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, located at Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York. It's being given next week at my local library in Florida, New York and it's something I'm looking forward to. I've heard of the Tuskegee Airmen of course, and this film was a good introduction, though not as expansive as I thought it would be regarding the history of the unit. It primarily focuses on a handful of individuals and as such, plays more as a story about how a small group of potential black Army Air Corps flyers overcame overt racism to become combat pilots during World War II. The caliber of actors selected was a good choice, including Laurence Fishburne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Courtney Vance and Andre Braugher. Each in their own way depicted how they persevered throughout their training and eventual assignment during the War. Fishburne and Braugher in particular displayed the singular type of attitude and behavior required to overcome the racism directed at them, thereby gaining a grudging respect from white officers and fellow flyers who they had to interact with. Andre Braugher portrayed the real Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, the only black line officer in the entire U.S. Army at the time (besides his own father), but one comes away from the film not knowing if the characters portrayed by Fishburne and the rest were also based on real heroes of the World War II. That will be a pertinent question for the military spokesmen at next week's presentation, and one I'll be looking forward to asking.

Robert J. Maxwell Nice flight scenes. We follow the first "Negro" pilots through their training in Alabama, where they suffer the usual insults and some of them are washed out or die. They begin in Boeing biplanes and in advanced training use T-6 Texans. Want to see what a Texan looks like? Watch any movie before CGI, when they invariably impersonated Japanese Zeros. Some of the footage is from gun cameras inserted into the movie, as is some footage from "The Battle of Britain". At one point, attacked by Me-109s, they shoot down a Focke-Wulf 190. And they blow up a Japanese destroyer off Italy.None of this is irritating because the narrative is so strong and the performances are mostly very good, despite the required stilted speeches about whose country are we fighting for. Andre Braugher plays the real-life Benjamin Davis -- and he does it to a T, with little drama and maximum effectiveness. He's an exceptional actor.John Lithgow plays a dilatory senator who has absolute proof that the Negro brain is different from the white brain in a way that makes them sluggish and unfit for aerial combat. It seems crazy now but, difficult as it is to believe, whole swaths of the country felt the same way in 1943. Hell, into 1953 and later.It's not a subtle movie. Nothing is much hinted at or suggested. If there's an emotion it's all spelled out for the view in the dialog "E-M-O-T-I-O-N." And in fact the movie itself, pregnant with promise, is almost ruined by the dialog during dogfights. "Take that, Kraut, and say hello to Hitler for me." That's verbatim and it's straight out of a flag-waving martial movie from the early war years, or out of some comic book.It's well worth catching, especially if you like airplanes as much as I do -- although I must say they haven't treated me well over the years. Just shut your ears through some of the shouting, which falls just short of Henry V's "Once more unto the breach."

andrew-richards I was 17 years old when I first saw this movie on HBO. I was enthralled by WWII history already at this point. This movie opened my eyes to a whole other area of history that was missing in the history books of the small 99.5% white town I grew up in. The challenges these hero's faced just to serve their country they so loved while a good percentage of the country loathed them is deserving of a decoration in and of itself. This is mostly what the movie focuses on. However, the record of the men of 332d is second to none; no other unit in WWII could boast that while escorting, they never lost a bomber. John Lithgow also plays a good bit-part in the movie. He is a much better actor than I because I could never play a part where I had to utter such bigoted garbage as he did in this movie. Laurence Fishburne and Andre Braugher deliver stellar performances as Hannibal Lee and the great military leader Benjamin O. Davis. This film is a definite must see for any WWII history fan and a great movie for everyone else. Too bad it was never released in the box office I think it would have faired well.

ruby2andor I enjoyed this film a lot, both for the drama and the action. I watched it on the History Channel where scenes from the film were intercut with commentary from surviving Tuskegee airmen. It made the film that much more fascinating.As one of the other reviewers mentioned, there is one scene where a pilot sinks a German destroyer using only this guns. This is a true event. From the "Tuskegee Airmen" site: "The 332nd Fighter Group also distinguished themselves in June 1944 when two of its pilots flying P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft discovered a German destroyer in the harbor at Trieste, Italy. One of the pilots, Lieutenant Gynne Pierson of the 302nd Fighter Squadron, using only the aircraft's 50-caliber machine guns, strafed the destroyer, causing it to explode and sink."The statement that the 332nd did not lose a single bomber to enemy action is also true. To qualify that, some of the bombers were lost in other ways, but never to enemy planes. In fact, under Benjamin O. Davis' command, the group flew more than 15,000 sorties against the Luftwaffe, shot down 111 enemy aircraft, and destroyed another 150 on the ground, while losing only 66 of their own aircraft to all causes. I am not sure they shot down the FIRST German jet, but they did receive a citation after shooting down some German jets. Again, from the TA website: "The 332nd Fighter Group received the Presidential Unit Citation for its longest bomber escort mission to Berlin, Germany, March 24, 1945. They destroyed three German ME-262 jet fighters and damaged five additional jet fighters without losing any of the bombers or any of its own fighter aircraft to enemy aircraft."Although there were no "aces" that came from the 332nd, this was probably because pilots were told not to pursue German planes for the kill once the planes were far enough away that they no longer posed a danger to the bombers.The Tuskegee airmen who commented on this film said that the racism they encountered in real life was much worse than was depicted in the film, but much of the rest of the film was realistic.I found it especially interesting that Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. (played by Andre Braugher) was depicted in this movie. He was a real person who was one of only two black line officers in the U.S. Army at the time--the other was his father. He was one of the first recruits trained at Tuskegee and received his wings in March 1942, after becoming the first black officer to solo an Army Air Corps aircraft. After flying in the Mediterranean, he returned to the US, and took command of the 332d Fighter Group. Eventually, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Following the War, he commanded the 477th Composite Group and the 332d Fighter Wing. In 1953 he again saw combat when he assumed command of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing and flew the F-86 in Korea. With his promotion to brigadier general, Davis became the first black man to earn a star in the US Air Force. He retired as a lieutenant general in 1970, and died in 2002, ironically on July 4, at age 89.