This movie opened quite a while ago but I just got around to seeing it. Much like Big Miracle, I’m pretty sure everyone who is going to see this movie in theaters already has seen it, but here goes nothing…
What Works: This movie about the Tuskegee airmen is obviously well-intentioned, well-crafted, well-acted, and has some very good aerial sequences. In fact, the high flying battles are so well done that it’s almost a shame when the movie returns to the ground. Still though, there was one big element that kept throwing me…
What Doesn’t Work: What the airmen are fighting for never made sense to me. In the beginning, they are given gravy missions with little likelihood of anyone getting killed, but Terrence Howard’s colonel (who will never actually be put in harm’s way) fights ferociously to get them in dangerous missions where they’re certain to sustain losses. I understand that the movie is saying “We’re as good a pilot as white airmen” and they certainly prove that, but there was just a real disconnect for me between what they were fighting for, essentially the right to get killed for a country that won’t even let them drink in the same military bar and treats them as sub-human. When the airmen are given increasingly risky missions, it reminded me of the all-black “human shield” platoon in the South Park movie, and I kept wondering why the movie treated suicide missions to protect white pilots as “progress.” Also, the movie commits the oldest cliche in the book by killing off the black guy who’s dating a white woman. [There’s also one where the white guy or black woman dating each other dies in any movie that features them.]
What I Would Have Done Differently: This movie is basically a commercial for the Air Force, so it’s very hard to say I would have made it less “awesome” to be in those planes getting killed because obviously that would hurt recruitment.