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."
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."