Red Tails
Maybe that's no surprise, knowing Lucas' past works, but I was hoping that his interpretation of a more factual story would be a bit more grounded in reality than his usual Sci-Fi fantasies. No such luck. Ham-fisted dialogue, stock characters, and underdeveloped melodrama is the name of the game here. I will admit, I was sort of entertained by a lot of the film's corniness. The movie has the feel of a B-1940s war movie spruced up with modern day effects. This is not the first time the story of the Tuskegee Airmen has been set to film, as there was a very fine HBO movie made about their exploits back in 1995. That was a more factual account of the story. This is a much simpler affair, emphasizing the big effects and the easy to read character types that come right out of a screenwriting handbook. If you accept that this is the style over substance version of the story, you'll probably enjoy Red Tails. I did a lot of the time, but found myself irritated by this film's thin attempts at character building.
The four main characters that the screenplay focuses on are the sort you'd expect to see in a movie like this. There's Marty "Easy" Julian (Nate Parker), who is the team leader struggling with alcohol, and a low self image in himself that sometimes leads him to question his own decisions in battle. His best friend is Joe "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo), the resident "maverick" of the squadron who likes to take big risks in battle and doesn't follow orders. Next up is Ray "Junior" Gannon (Tristan Wilds), the youngest member of the Airmen who wants to prove himself, and not be seen as a "kid". Finally, there's Samuel "Joker" George (Elijah Kelley), who as his nickname hints, provides much of the comic relief. To the credit of the actors playing these characters, they are all fine in their roles, especially Parker and Oyelowo, whose friendship creates probably the closest thing to real emotion that this movie gets. The problem lies in the screenplay by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder, which gives the characters half-baked personalities and motivations.
A romantic subplot that sparks between "Lightning" and a woman he meets in Italy is a fine example of just how thin the dramatic material is. The movie keeps on constantly cutting back to this plot, which is supposed to show the relationship building between the two. But the thing is, the movie forgets to give the two lovers anything in common. They barely speak each other's language to begin with, so it's kind of hard to swallow when he gets down on one knee and asks to marry her after only being with her two times, and even harder to swallow when she agrees. We're supposed to get behind these characters and feel for them, but the movie completely forgets to give them any real chemistry or personality when they're together. Whenever the movie cuts back to the love story, you can almost feel the film's energy deflating right up there on the screen.
Fortunately, Red Tails devotes most of its two hour running time to its strongest aspect, the World War II air battles. Initially, the Airmen are restricted to clean up missions, taking care of munition trucks and trains that were left behind after an earlier air battle by other squadrons. The racist head generals in Washington are reluctant to give them a chance to see real combat, but after a high ranking official pulls a few strings, they are assigned their first real air battle, and get to show their skill. This leads to more missions, including a bomb strike in Berlin. These air strikes and battle sequences obviously were given the most attention by director Anthony Hemingway (a TV director making his feature length debut). They feature an intensity and attention to detail that the rest of the film lacks.
I would define Red Tails as an admirable, but flawed film. It's obviously been made with care, but the storytelling, characterizations, and dialogue prevent me from fully getting behind it. That said, for all of its obvious faults, the movie does work at times. The cast of relative unknowns that make up the main characters show a lot of talent, and definitely know how to rise above some of the leaden dialogue they've been forced to recite. In fact, they end up being a lot more memorable than the two more well known actors who get their names above the title - Cuba Gooding, Jr (who also acted in the 1995 film about the Tuskegee Airmen) and Terrance Howard. Gooding is given little to do but bark orders and chomp on a pipe as one of the head officers, while Howard just never really stands out as the commanding officer who helps the Airmen get real missions. Neither get to make an impact like the younger actors do.
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