This inspirational docudrama really is from the top-drawer. Ten years in the making and costing $8.5m, it tells of the struggle of the first black squadron to fly for America in World War Two - the Fighting 99th of the 332nd Fighter Group who trained out of Tuskegee Air Force base in Alabama. Reminscent of Glory (that featured an all-black US Civil War regiment) this is an exceptional film, with a fine cast that includes Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr and John Lithgow (as a racist senator, of course). Under Robert Markowitz's tight direction, the film falls into two acts - the long, hard training road to producing a fighting force and the reality of aerial combat over North Africa. It is quite remarkable to think that there was such a thing as a segregated unit in 1942 but many high-ups did not want a Negro outfit fighting abroad because they refused to believe that blacks had the brain or the courage to fly combat missions. Only after the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt (played here by Rosemary Murphy) was the squadron allowed to join the war effort. Co-written by T S Cook and Robert W Williams, a highly-decorated former pilot in the 99th.

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