Red Tails

I had high hopes for this; Cuba Gooding Jnr, Terence Howard, David Oyelowo and Bryan Cranston in the same film? Surely this would be a master work of cultural importance highlighting egregious racial slights in WWII which were - clearly - absurd? The topic laid open the opportunity for aerial combat scenes that would make Top Gun look like walk in the park given that it's nearly 30 years on and surely SFX would have improved exponentially - it's LucasFilm for crying out loud - George Lucas knows a bit about SFX, right? Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. WRONG. This was Red Tails, light. The Disney version of the story, if you will.

The acting, with the notable exceptions of Oyelowo, who tried SO hard to carry the film, Gooding Jnr & Howard who given their heavy-weight were woefully under-utilised but still shone in every scene (especially Howard) but who has Terence Howard in a film and only give him about four scenes? Who!? David Oyelowo's maverick-type character "Lightening" was the only character with depth, but even he struggled with the ridiculously poor script and naive plot formation as the film was a staccato of - largely predictable - events. Of course the dogfights and flying scenes were key but there was so much potential that was glossed over. insubordination, alcoholism, unlikely romance, fear and righteous rage at a government scorning them because of the colour of their skin! It could have been mindblowing... it should have been edge of the seat tense but nothing about this hit the nail on the head. It missed on every point. Direction, score, script, acting etc and even the aerial combat scenes were poor. It had no passion, or realism. There were a few good aerial moves but it was without emotional response, consequence or discipline!

For telling a true story, or at least based on true events and the Tuskegee Training program, these airmen were fighting to prove wrong (!) a Government edict that stated that Black people weren't smart, coordinated, skilled, brave or loyal enough to fly a plane in battle and would chicken out, as they were gutless. What a story to take part in!! Woefully disappointing. The moments of bravery, sentient, beauty, faith and camaraderie were glossed over, not enough made of them, and it felt like it dragged; I was convinced it was a three hour film as whilst things happened, they didn't *HAPPEN.* Overall it was too ... vanilla. This film shouldn't have been a 12A. It should have been real and raw and visceral. Oh what a waste.

Among the many problems I had with Red Tails, I suppose one of the most egregious was the incredibly overbearing and cloying musical score. But in a rather sad way, the score perfectly fits the entirely forced and artificial nature of the movie itself. Now, I know that typically a film's musical score is used to enhance emotion, but in the case of Red Tails, the music is so over-the-top, in-your-face, and cliché ridden that I couldn't help but laugh at times. One example is the music we hear when a soldier drives into an Italian town. Yes, we know we're in Italy, but in case anyone is confused we're treated to a musical cue that sounds like the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp. And if you can't figure out that the German pilot is a bad guy, why, the music will certainly tell you! Well, that and the GIGANTIC SCAR ON HIS German FACE!

And I'm sure I'll be called a pinko/commie for saying this, but what was up with playing America the Beautiful during the credits? It felt so forced, like the music in one of those "patriotic" animatronic exhibits at Disneyland that gets mocked. And the reason those are mocked is because they are lifeless objects trying to manipulate and force us to feel something without actually LETTING us feel that way on our own. It's cynical trickery. And that's how I feel about the score of Red Tails and pretty much the movie in general.

The men of the 332nd were heroes and patriots. Real ones. But they were also real men, not the cartoon characters in Red Tails. And the Tuskegee Airmen deserve better than the childish fantasy of George Lucas by way of Anthony Hemingway.

Comic book, maybe cheap video game at best ("Germans! Lets get 'em"). I've never seen fighter pilots so happy in the face to death. Laughing, joking in the middle of an air battle (could it be nervous laughter or poor writing and directing. Opening credits say "Inspired by True Events" which means Lucas and his team made up a bunch of stuff, and in the process, introduced a lot of errors and just plain factual sloppiness. Off duty, the film has black pilots shuckin and jivin almost in a Stepin-Fetchit style. Didn't someone tell the Lucasfilm people that this is an important historical event in the history of the US and ultimately led to the integration of the US military. The film was a disappointment and a disservice to the Tuskegee Airmen.

I actually saw a matinée of Red Tails today.

I'm not saying that any paid critic or anyone on this board is a moron, or that people steeped in World War II historical facts will like it, or even that those few who hate the original Star Wars Trilogy will somehow flip their taste and enjoy Red Tails. But. . .

Simply to represent those who actually saw the film, here is my two cents for and have the capacity to appreciate it. This is not the dry historical reportage that some people prefer. It pushes buttons, gets emotional reactions and laughs that it earns, and it was worth the wait. I remember talk of this project from the good old days when there were only great Star Wars features and no Prequel duds.

No disservice had been done to the story of these airmen. Though nothing feels left out and it doesn't feel especially episodic (a curse of most reality-based movies), nothing rings especially false. It is a genre movie: war flick. Racism is touched upon and shown to be ignorant, respect is given to the Red tails, and the tragedy that you expect actually can happen so even when there is fun there is the spectre of danger.

After enjoying this movie, many people may begin to study the historical details with this movie as a sort of primer. Be reassured that none of the characters bump into Young Indiana Jones. But also make no mistake, the pacing is good, the dogfights are cool, and it is a movie. There is no time wasted on languid ambiguous lulls onto which we can impose deep artistic intent. There is one high note that feels a bit forced because it is not explained and its timing seems like too much of a shift within a scene (I won't say where it occurs, but it's the one time I felt the hand of the adaptor squeezing something into the wrong setting). There is one piece of score over one scene, reprised part way into the end credits, that is borderline as to whether it should be included. The percussion feels programmed. The rest of the score is appropriate orchestra stuff generic enough that I didn't notice it, so it must have fit. Critic Richard Crouse said he thought because Lucas was involved, the pilots talk about women during battle instead of having just the task at hand in mind. So I was definitely listening for this. The fact it they do NOT chit-chat about a woman during BATTLE. Only bored on patrol BEFORE spotting a target, and AFTER a battle. I would not take points off for a character touching his girlfriend's photo, or a comic relief character trying to get good mojo from "Black Jesus." I thought those moments were fitting and appropriate, whether or not they are clichés. One character admonishes the believer with a paraphrased Han Solo line and another says that the new fighter looks like it is speeding while standing still (paraphrasing an off-camera Lucas line from Tucker: A Man and His Dream). But other than that the grimy fingerprints of the disgraced post Phantom Menace maverick are not evident. The ILM special effects didn't seem especially fake to me, even though they must have been, and even the non-famous members of the cast are delivered and memorable whether we remember their names or not. Good show.

For 24 years, George Lucas has been developing a film about the Tuskegee Airmen, the all African American squad of army pilots during World War II. Now, the dream has come true and the final result of "Red Tails" is a too long, tedious, all noise and no heart time killer. It makes one yearn for the memories of Lucas's "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones".

In 1944 Italy, a group of four army pilots has been summoned to protect bombers over Germany. Along the way, they have encounters with friendship, romance, danger and overcoming death.

The film's director, Anthony Hemingway should have stuck to directing TV shows before filming this lackluster effort. John Ridley and Aaron McGruber's script feels third rate and mostly shifts into territories of melodrama and clichés. They should have taken out the bad subplot involving a romance between an Italian girl and one of the pilots and remained focused to expand on the story of the Airmen. The art direction looks like it's been borrowed from too many movies and the action sequences fails to generate any thrills. The visual effects from Industrial Light and Magic add no excitement to the action.

The young actors playing the pilots {David Oyelowo, Nate Parker, Tristan Wilds and Elijah Kelly} and the acting veterans {Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard} feel like they're taking their roles forcefully instead of seriously. Both Gooding Jr. and Howard proved one thing in their respective roles: They were both in the film just for the money.

All in all, this fails both in entertainment and as a history lesson. For the past four decades, Lucas wowed audiences by showing them how movies can take people to brand new worlds with "Star Wars" and "Indy". Now, this time, he has failed. Both Lucas and the Tuskegee Airmen deserved better.

In the end, the best thing to come out of this is the thing before the film itself. The "thing" that I'm talking about is the trailer for the upcoming and hopefully very funny "Three Stooges" movie.

Rating: 1 star