A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of C... Read allA crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 9 nominations
- Ray 'Junior' Gannon
- (as Tristan Wilds)
- Sticks
- (as Cliff Smith)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCuba Gooding Jr. is not new to the subject of the film. He has previously been in The Tuskegee Airmen (1995).
- GoofsIn the opening scene, the German flight leader is not wearing his oxygen mask throughout the entire battle. B-17 missions were routinely at altitudes of 25,000 feet (all the American characters are wearing masks). Without the oxygen mask, the German commander would have passed out in a matter of minutes.
- Quotes
Andrew 'Smokey' Salem: When you get upset, when you get mad, you turn red, right? When you get envious, or sick, you turn green. When you become cowardly, you turn yellow; and ya'll got the nerve to call us colored?
- ConnectionsFeatured in Maltin on Movies: Haywire (2012)
- SoundtracksIt's Been a Long, Long Time
Written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne
Performed by Harry James and His Orchestra (as Harry James & His Orchestra)
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
Okay, that addresses some of the issues that are clouding this movie. For some of us, the question is; are the air battles done well? The answer, IMHO, is a resounding "yes." In making the movie, they had three P-51 Mustangs, one B-17 Flying Fortress and a C-47 available for filming. Everything else is CGI or full scale mock-ups. As is to be expected for a movie which had its visual effects supervised by Industrial Light and Magic, the CGI is outstanding. Squadrons of B-17s, P-51s, P-40s, Bf 109s and Me 262s fill the sky and look completely real. The dogfights are shot and edited so that it is not difficult to follow the action. There is none of the super fast cutting that is the bane of so many action movies these days. There is plenty of air action, too, though it was not enough to satisfy me. Of course, they could have made the movie nothing but air action and I still would have wanted more.
Is it a perfect movie? No, of course not. It has a couple of subplots (a romance and a prison escape) that are well done but not really necessary to the movie (though my wife would disagree with me about the romance). Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, but what kind of George Lucas movie would this be if that were not the case? It is filled with beautiful aircraft, though, and for me that makes up for any shortcomings. If you don't mind a war movie that is not cynical but instead is about courage under fire and patriotism, then I think you will enjoy this movie.
- blackhawk66
- Jan 20, 2012
- Permalink
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $58,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $49,876,377
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $18,782,154
- Jan 22, 2012
- Gross worldwide
- $50,365,498
- Runtime2 hours 5 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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