Red Tails

It's 1944 Italy. The Tuskegee Airmen are a squadron of black pilots finally given the chance to prove themselves in the sky, even while they're battling discrimination on the ground. The are given the task of protecting bombers sent to destroy Germany.

This stars a large cast of black actors most notably Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr. The story of these men is a whole lot of cheesy stale clichés. The filmmaker seemed to have concentrated on CG fighter action more than giving these men good story lines. This multi-story line is embarrassingly old school. If they could just do one character, that would be an improvement. And imagine if that character is real.

Red Tails is a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen. A squadron of black Army pilots who served with distinction in Europe in World War II despite facing racial prejudice.

The film was produced by George Lucas and it has some top notch CGI with the aerial battle scenes. The script is rather corny and flat as well as being fictionalised.

The four main characters are Marty 'Easy' Julian (Nate Parker) who likes to drink a lot. His best friend, Joe 'Lightning' Little (David Oyelowo) a hotshot pilot who is having a romance with a local Italian woman. Samuel 'Joker' George (Elijah Kelley) is good for laughs. Ray 'Junior' Gannon (Tristan Wilds) is the baby of the group.

The film is too uninspired, cheesy and cliched. It manages to get glorified cameos from Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr.

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.

I want to start by saying that I had a great big smile on my face before the film even started. For this to be the opening showing on Friday afternoon, there was a pretty decent crowd. And virtually every adult coming to see the film had young people in tow. I was also thrilled to see the diversity of the film-goers. We've come a long way since The Color Purple. I guess the first thing I want to do is to give props to the director of this film, Anthony Hemingway. You might remember him from such brilliant films as Changing Lanes, ALI and The Manchurian Candidate. He definitely kept on track with Red Tails. Although most (some) of us know the story behind the Tuskegee training program during World War II, Hemingway brought the story closer than ever. This does not detract from The Tuskegee Airmen film made back in 1995 starring Laurence Fishburne and Allen Payne, which was also brilliant. Now, on to the cast…… Howard and Cuba and Nate….. oh my!!!! I am not sure if the writing was brilliant or not, but I thought that the acting was exceptional. Terrence Howard (Colonel A.J. Bullard) took the reins by getting his troops the credibility they deserved. Cuba Gooding Junior (Major Emanuelle Stance) maneuvered his company through the never ending red tape that came with war back in 1944. Nate Parker (Marty "Easy" Julian) took the lead in this amazing cast of actors. I could go on naming cast members for another 2 or 3 hundred words, but I won't. The one thing that I will say is that it was nice to see Nate Parker and Tristan Wilds (Ray "Junior" George) reunite again after their appearance in The Secret Life of Bees. I know what you're thinking…… "Aren't you the same person who hates biopics?" The answer is "yes, I am". However, it is so difficult to get gripping stories about minorities (any minority) on to the big screen that I have to rejoice when it happens. Finally, I want to say that I had another smile on my face when at the end of the film, the audience applauded. I definitely think that this film is worth the price of a ticket, so I say fasten your seat belts and hop into the cockpit and go and see this film. All engines are "Go" with a green light.

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.