THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN (1995) - Movie Review

Director: Robert Markowitz
Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., Allen Payne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Courtney B. Vance, Andre Braugher, Christopher McDonald, Daniel Hugh Kelly, Mekhi Phifer, John Lithgow
Genre: Drama, History, War
Writer: Paris Qualles, Trey Ellis, Ron Hutchinson, Robert Wayland Williams, T. S. Cook
Runtime: 106 min
Rated: PG-13 for thematic elements and brief strong war violence
Buy This Movie: Blu-ray (Amazon), DVD (Amazon), Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV

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Synopsis:

The 'fighting 99th' was the first squadron of African-American U.S. Army Air Corps combat fighter pilots in WWII. When they began training, few, if any, in the Army wanted them there. They had to prove that they were stronger, tougher, smarter and better fliers than most white pilots...and they did! Laurence Fishburne (1993 Best Actor Oscar(R) nominee for 'Whats Love Got to Do With It?') stars in this high-flying drama as a Chicago law-school graduate whose determination to serve his country led him to intense training in Tuskegee, Alabama...and into action in the dangerous skies over North Africa and Europe. Co-starring Allen Payne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Courtney B. Vance, Andre Braugher, Christopher McDonald, John Lithgow as Senator Conyers and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Review:

The 1995 HBO TV movie "The Tuskegee Airmen" is a semi-fictionalized chronicle of the legendary African-American combat pilots, the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (today's US Air Force), who fought in World War II, successfully breaking the color barrier and shattering stereotypes about black pilots. Their impressive battle record included more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during the war, earning them more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Their success was instrumental in encouraging the eventual integration of the U.S. armed forces.

Under the pressure of lobbying campaigns and the war raging in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that the US Army Air Corps would begin to train Black pilots, and the site of this experiment was the Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, deep in Jim Crow South. The young men who trained there had to overcome not only the rigorous training and dangers of flight, but also widespread racism that labeled them as incapable of learning to fly or operate complicated machinery such as airplanes.

The movie doesn't waste too much time on the broader historical context, but it offers just enough information to understand what the situation was like at the time. What I don't quite understand is why they chose to make up fictional characters for the pilots instead of focusing on the real Tuskegee heroes. Regardless, it's got a strong ensemble of actors that includes Laurence Fishburne, Allen Payne, Cuba Gooding Jr., Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Andre Braugher, and their stoic, determined performances help elevate what would otherwise be shallow and cliched characters.

If you're expecting large scale battles, you're in for a huge disappointment. While the movie does have a decent amount of flying missions, not much of the actual battles is shown. Lacking the budget George Lucas' "Red Tails", or Apple's "Masters of the Air", the film simply didn't have the means to stage spectacular battle scenes. The filmmakers try to make up for that by cleverly mixing aerial photography and stuntwork with archive footage, which works for a while, but when a climactic air raid thar bookends the movie and represents the culmination of the Tuskegee airmen's efforts is mentioned in title cards but never shown, it sure gives the movie an unfinished and unsatisfying feeling.

"The Tuskegee Airmen" is a decent docudrama with its heart in the right place, but it lacks the extra oomph to help it stand out. It's still better than the ill-conceived "Red Tails", and while its scope is not as epic as I might have liked, the HBO film is still a solid historical dramatization that gets a powerful message across.

SCORE: 7/10