Red Tails

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 registered for IMDb just so I could write this review. This is by far the absolute worst movie I have ever seen. I walked out of the movie theatre laughing, but it was seriously awkward. As I drove home I felt like I was in another life where our species is capable of creating dog poop and smearing it all over a screen and calling it a movie. Not joking. A cat could have come up with a better plot. A lizard could have written a better script. I felt like I was watching a bad episode of Tailspin. At one point one of the pilots sees a German do some trick with his plane. A few scenes later this man is in jail. A few scenes later he is flying, pulls a handle, and his plane automatically does a backflip. He learned how to do it from the German. I think the script may have been written in crayon. When the white pilots speak in their bombers, they sound like retarded robots. A guy is taken as a prisoner of war in what was supposed to be an emotional scene. Abruptly the scene cuts to a man playing a guitar and happily singing. The transition was just awkward. A guy has a fuel leak in his jet and he's been shot, but his plane is perfectly capable of flying and landing (he has flaps and landing gear). His superior officer tells him to bail out instead of landing (makes no sense). He can't get his canopy open, so then his superior officer tells him to just land (why not do that in the first place). He comes in for a landing and like two feet above the ground some nightmare of physics happens, and all of a sudden the plan is tumbling down the runway in a devastating crash. Someone pulls the pilot from the wreckage and he is apparently OK. About five minutes after the crash, the fuel that had been leaking catches fire and the plane explodes. Very very very very stupid. I am a pilot in the Air Force. I just left the movie and my head was spinning. I couldn't believe that I had actually just seen such a terrible display of humanity. This movie makes Fast and Furious look like Shawshank Redemption or Gladiator. If you wanted to make me commit suicide, you would put me in a room with this movie playing 24/7. This is such rubbish. I seriously do not have words to describe my feelings right now. I am not even disappointed. I almost feel like it was so bad that we actually achieved something with this movie. Like we may have actually done something that never has been done before and never will again. I feel like this movie was an absolute sin. I seriously am trying to get across to you, the reader, a feeling that cannot be put into words. My head has been spinning for the last hour. Because of this movie I am struggling to truly comprehend reality. After 1 hour of this movie I was ready to walk out or fall asleep, but I was just intrigued by the absolute devastation I was feeling that I stayed and finished it. The movie really doesn't end, the screen just all of a sudden starts rolling credits. This movie is kind of like a Chuck Norris joke in and of itself. I don't know if that makes any sense...in fact none of this review has made sense, but I feel like it is the sum total of my emotional response to the absolute worst movie I have ever seen. I told my buddy who saw it with me that I was going to come home and watch Nacho Libre in order to re-ground myself. Stupendously horrific.

However remarkable the achievements of the real Muskegee Airmen, "Red Tails" is an unworthy telling of their story that will satisfy only the most unsophisticated viewers. The script is heavy-handed, contrived, and banal. The dialogue is horribly stereotypical, and predictable and lifeless. Much of the acting is painful to watch. The directing is muddled and unclear, stringing together in the crudest manner a series of contrived and often-disposable vignettes obviously designed to push a message or elicit an emotional response rather than to develop the story. The film's many problems emerge from the outset. These African-American airmen have been consigned to essentially non-combat patrols in areas where enemy planes haven't been seen in months. Yet in their first engagement with Luftwaffe veterans, they wipe the bad guys out while suffering zero losses. Seriously? Through the entire film, we never see them train, never see them study, never see them work on tactics or strategy or skills. All they do is complain and BS. I have no doubt the real Muskegee airmen worked hard to hone their technique; these characters do not. Nevertheless, they easily vanquish everything the Germans throw their way. Incredible. I could go on and on and on, but suffice it to say that if you want to see a worthy telling of African-Americans' contributions to the US military, avoid this clunker at all costs and watch "Glory" instead.

Every now and then a movie comes along that inspires you through the depiction of heroic acts done by brave men and women over the many hundreds and thousands of years gone by. George Lucas is one of my all time favorite filmmakers while Cuba Golding Jr and Terrence Howard are actors i have always held in great regard so obviously when i got a chance to see these guys work together on a WWII drama(A genre i love) i was very excited. Based on real life incidents drawing inspiration from the Tuskegee Airmen a group of African American pilots who fought in World War II The movie is spectacular to say the least. While the action scenes have been choreographed with mind blowing precision and special effects, Terrence Howard has come up with one of the most memorable performances of his career Cuba Golding Jr's acting however seems patchy at places but he thoroughly makes up for it in the second half. In addition to an excellent supporting cast this movie also boasts of a script that offers abundant scope for more than sufficient characterization. The movie delivers what it promises an endearing depiction of how people have fought discrimination of all sorts and emerged courageously to fight for causes above and beyond their calling.

If you like military history or the kind of fighter action seen in the Star Wars series, then Red Tails is the movie for you. But the dogfights are just half of what this film is about. I was pleasantly surprised with the stories that were told when planes and bullets weren't flying through the air. Red Tails has a sizable ensemble cast of lead actors, who all do an admirable job with their parts. Several characters share the spotlight, and are given time to deal with their own personal stories and issues. They experience prejudice and adversity, but also romance and friendship. The interaction between the cast was terrific and nuanced. I really believed that this was a group of war buddies, who had their differences but nonetheless cared about each other. Visually, the movie is excellent. Not just the CGI fighter planes, which won't even come across as CGI (blowing up real historical aircraft would've been out of the question). The scenery of the Italian cities and countryside is beautiful. If I have one complaint, it's that the ending is a bit abrupt. I would've liked to see a "bigger" final battle, but as I understand it this movie didn't get a mega blockbuster budget. Also, though this movie is a fictional one merely "inspired" by true events, the true events still placed a limit on what the movie's heroes could do. They don't singlehandedly wipe out the Luftwaffe or win the war, and are restricted to escorting American bombers as the real Red Tails did. But still, go see this movie. It's definitely worth it.

I figured with names such as George Lucas, Cuba Gooding Jr and Terrence Howard that Red Tails had to be a great movie. I couldn't have been more wrong. To start with the acting was sub-standard, it was as though I was sitting through a high school play. Everyone was very robotic sounding, no heart and soul per se. Gooding's performance was his worse yet and him constantly gnawing away on his unlit pipe, which he was pretending to smoke became an ongoing joke, I think they meant to put CGI smoke in afterwards but perhaps Mr. Lucas forgot or ran out of money to spend. On the bright side it was nice to see the guy that played Rick Simon from the 80's show Simon & Simon was alive and well. The plot was absolutely miserable. Characters that had no place being there, in particular the Italian love interest of one of the pilots. It seemed like the intent was suppose to be a sidelined plot, but if that was the idea, it failed. She had no place in this story. All the white folk are made out to be racists, save a few kind officers who pull for the Tuskegee airmen to get a fail shake, the white fighter pilots come off as over zealot morons who abandon their task at every whim to chase decoys, there is an alcoholic pilot who would have been booted from flying long ago, the reckless one that does what he wants and disobeys orders, who would have been court martialed and discharged in the first 10 minutes of the movie, and the list goes on and on, it was unbearable. Also, in this movie, apparently pilots are not subject to the laws of physics and G-force. The CGI looked cartoonish. The fighter planes were doing stunts and manoeuvres that would be obviously impossible in reality. Trains that explode and derail when shot at by 50 calibre guns, it goes on and on...Look I know it is a movie and not a documentary, but it kills me when at the beginning of the film it boldly states that this movie is based on factual events. The only factual events in Red Tails is that there was an all African American fighter squadron who painted their plane tails red, PERIOD. Bottom line, this flick had B-movie acting, crappy direction, a God-awful script, corny dog fighting scenes, cheap CGI graphics, unrealistic physics defying stunts and a out of place musical score, hip-hop music over the closing credits, please. I wish I never saw this movie.

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.

My biggest problem is that I saw the 1995 film Tuskegee Airman and loved it. I had to compare this current film to that and unfortunately found it extremely lacking. I don't feel any connection to the characters in this film. Live or die, who knows or cares. Contrasting that with the Tuskegee Airman, when people died in that film, you felt it. You cared about each single character and were emotionally invested with them. So my saying, wait for DVD, and if you want a much better film, buy the Tuskegee Airman. You wont be disappointed.

The Script was awful (probably handwritten and about a page and a half of college rule paper) the acting was the worst, the love story was lame. Just an all-around BAD movie. You think before it was released someone would have reviewed the movie and say " Man, thats an awful movie... Might need to rethink this one." I am mad because this movie had so much potential and I in my opinion it fell flat on its face. It looked cheap and poorly done from the beginning. Should have left this one to a directer that knows what they are doing. This movie made Fly Boys look like it should have won Best Picture.

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.