B-17 la forteresse volante

I realize that this was an extremely ambitious project produced on a shoestring budget. Allowing for this, is it too much trouble to find somebody who knows somebody whose cousin knows somebody that had even the slightest knowledge of Army Air Corps uniforms? Find a book with pictures of aircrew from that theater of the war. NO PILOT WEARS HIS WINGS ON THE FLAP OF HIS KHAKI SHIRT POCKET. All other flying crew (and especially the CO) would be wearing the appropriate wings for their specialty. The wings are worn directly above the pocket on the left side of the khaki shirt. Every single leather brimmed officer's hat was screwed up. When you take out the cap spring to get a 50 Mission Crush the sides of the had are pulled down over the band on the side from wearing earphones over the hat. It looked like there was a box of wadded up hats dumped on the set and everybody just grabbed whichever one they could get and slammed it on his head. Overseas (Cunt caps) hats are not tucked into the epaulets when indoors, they are slipped into the belt. And for god's sake have everyone get a haircut that would make them appear they were in the military. These are all cost free items that make the production look cheaper than necessary.

It's also unlikely that there would be a large B17 group based in Africa. Most of the units there were equipped with the B24 and they were painted in a desert tan paint scheme. All in all lack of attention to small no-cost details detracted from this movie.

and the dialog is just too modern. this is a very poorly directed movie too. but the worst thing in this movie is the sound track, the music to support the movie simply carelessly and mindless broadcast its own tune that got nothing to do with the storyline and the plot. the cgi of the first air sortie at the very beginning was also poorly crafted, it looks just too fake, the b-17s in the sky were just like a kid's drawing, the air battle also look very disconnected. what bothered me most was the music during the air raid, it played and played so loud, not just blocked the dialog but also further ruined the realistic feeling of the movie itself. then the whole movie suddenly aground on the airbase, those young actors were just poor 3rd rated non-talents. their acting simply further ruined the already too bad movie. i really doubt that people would have the patience to watch along and finish it. this is a poorly produced movie that should not put into production in the first place. if i have to use one word to describe this movie, it would be: "BORING". there's no sense to sit through the whole nine yard to the end. it's a b-movie's b movie, not even worth paying $1.00 to rent the DVD.

After a string of stinkers out of Hollywood lately, I wasn't expecting much from this film, with its cast of little known actors. And at first I thought it was living up to my expectations, with a few glitches here and there dragging my attention out of the story. But it kept pulling me back and I found at the end that I was thoroughly absorbed. It hammers a few points perhaps over-strongly, where subtlety might have been more elegant, but it had an honesty that overlaid that.

It isn't gung-ho like a 60's war movie, and it isn't ultra-realistic like a modern battle film, it's somewhere in between and has a charm and compulsion of its own that made me very pleased to have watched it.

Forgive it its few faults and it will reward you with a good watch!

Hi everybody:

Here's what I thought. Movies about this subject especially American films tend to go way over the top if you know what I mean. Too much sis boom bah let's go win the war all by our selves sort of thing. This wasn't like that at all and I liked that very much. The music was not good. Too bad. I liked the fact that they were in North Africa, probably Tunisia. That was nice for a change. I thought the CGI looked very good especially the German 109s. The camouflage, markings and dimensions were right on. They looked like BF 109 G10s from JG 52. So many war films don't give two cents about what enemy aircraft look like but in this film they did. I know all of this because I've been researching WWII aeroplanes for about thirty years.

Pearl Harbor was made to make big bucks and is one of the worse WWII movies ever. This little film was better.

Laughable movie. Good CG, but someone did not do their history lesson. While B-17s did operate out of Africa, there were nowhere near the numbers the movie shows. Heck, there weren't that many in Europe at the time! The aircraft depicted are the wrong model and are sporting European camouflage schemes, not North African schemes. Crews in Africa did not walk around in sheep skin flight clothing during the day and it is near freezing at night in the desert. At the operating altitudes of the B-17s and B-24s, the temperatures are at or near 50 degrees below zero. No one is wearing light flight clothing. They are festooned in electrically heated flight suits and flak gear. No one is eating or drinking anything because it would be frozen.

In the aerial combat scenes, weapons are fired in bursts for a number of reasons. And, there is no such thing as a P-40 Warhawk dogfighting a Bf-109; the former was hopelessly outclassed by the later. In the more recent movie, "Redtails," there is a reason the black fighter units were employed only as ground support and not fighter escort. The P-40 was incapable of doing the job as fighter to high-altitude bombers.

I could go on. Basically, this movie is a video game in which you have no control. But, the crew interaction was well done.