War films are astronomically expensive to produce so I actually admire what this film company was able to do with limited resources. I am well aware that many historical films often veer from historical accuracy regarding the events and personages they portray in the name of "artistic license." I also get that the filmmaker was attempting to stress the discrimination faced by African Americans in a segregated military, however, deciding to make up a totally fictitious account of four-time Olympic Gold Medalist Jesse Owens is not the way to achieve this goal.
Jess Owens spent the war years working as a liaison for a national fitness program sponsored by the Office of Civilian Defense and for the Ford Motor Company overseeing relations with black employees. Owens never served in the military in any capacity much less as the commander of a Hellcat Tank receiving the Silver Star as the script would have you believe. In a film that was striving for realism this was about as believable as F.D.R. piloting a B17 over Berlin. There literally hundreds upon hundreds of African-American soldiers who served in tank divisions as well as around 6,000 black soldiers assigned as truck drivers in the "Red-Ball Express." How difficult would it have been to do a little research and create a character based upon the experiences of some of these men? It would have made for a far more plausible film.
This film really did have a lot of potential. A credible script would have made it a pretty decent movie.
Jess Owens spent the war years working as a liaison for a national fitness program sponsored by the Office of Civilian Defense and for the Ford Motor Company overseeing relations with black employees. Owens never served in the military in any capacity much less as the commander of a Hellcat Tank receiving the Silver Star as the script would have you believe. In a film that was striving for realism this was about as believable as F.D.R. piloting a B17 over Berlin. There literally hundreds upon hundreds of African-American soldiers who served in tank divisions as well as around 6,000 black soldiers assigned as truck drivers in the "Red-Ball Express." How difficult would it have been to do a little research and create a character based upon the experiences of some of these men? It would have made for a far more plausible film.
This film really did have a lot of potential. A credible script would have made it a pretty decent movie.