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Reviews
The Avenging Angel (1995)
Excellent commentary on the times
Avenging Angel explores a history of the old West that few outside of Utah will have explored. Granted some liberties have been taken, but the story holds up quite well, an the dialog snaps throughout. Charleston Heston can add Brigham Young to Moses and Ben Hur on his list of major religious figures he has portrayed. Tom Berringer gives a solid performance. James Coburn is brilliant as Porter Rockwell.
From a historic point of view, the storyline may not be entirely true to fact, but Gary Stewart, author of the original novel, grew up in a traditional Mormon family in St. George, Utah. While this specific story may be fictitious, it is based on a tremendous amount of historic fact.
Flyboys (2006)
Huge historical inaccuracy
"Flyboys" is a huge disappointment. The action is plodding at best, and James Franco is thrust at us as if he's the next Tom Cruise.
The biggest problem is the many historical inaccuracies. Since the movie is historical in nature, getting some of the history right would have been nice.
The biggest problem I saw was the German Air Force. Rittmeister Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, the Red Baron, painted his Foulker Triplane red to stand out. The other planes under his command (including a young Herman Goerring) followed suit, but left variations. His brother Lothar painted the tail Yellow. Others added Blue, black or other colors. According to the movie, however, every plane in the German Air Force was the Red Baron.
There is tremendous literature on this, including the Journal of Richthofen himself, his brothers' writing, even Goerring, who commanded the squadron at the end of the war, explained this.
There are other problems, including the performance abilities of the planes, which look good on film, but would not have happened in the air.