Joe ‘Lightning’ Little: David Oweyolo
Ray ‘Junior’ Gannon: Tristan Wilds
Andrew ‘Smokey’ Salem: Ne-Yo
David ‘Deke’ Watkins: Marcus T. Paulk
Samuel ‘Joker’ George: Elijah Kelley
Antwan ‘Coffee’ Coleman: Andre Royo
Maj. Emmanuelle Stance: Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Col. A.J. Bullard: Terrence Howard
Sofia: Daniela Ruah
20th Century Fox
presents a film directed by Anthony Hemingway. Written by John Ridley and Aaron
McGruder. Running time: 125 min. Rated PG-13 (for some sequences of war
violence).
“Red Tails” is at best an
unusual World War II movie that tells the story of the all-black air squadron
sometimes known as the Tuskegee Airmen. At its worst, it is a hackneyed
melodrama that sees combat with antiquated romantic notions that rely on
age-old archetypes and clichéd speech-driven dialogue. Executive produced by
George Lucas of “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” fame, the path “Red Tails” took
to the big screen has been a storied one in which Lucas has been trying to get
the film made since 1988. The time it took to find financing and come to
fruition did little to help its script; however, it did allow for CGI
technology to become advanced enough for it to offer some of the most thrilling
aerial combat scenes to find their way to celluloid.
The opening action sequence
has an odd stylization to it. Director Anthony Hemingway's camera exposes flaws
in the U.S. bombing strategy when the fighter pilots employed to guard the
bombers were trained to chase after the German pilots and wrack up kills. This
left the bombers vulnerable to further attack, and most were ripped apart by
enemy fire long before they reached their objectives. Rather than spell this
out to the audience, Hemingway keeps his camera trained on the bomber crews and
captures the loss of life as each bomber finds its demise in the skies. The pacing here isn’t typical of an
action scene, leaving the audience uncomfortable with what they are seeing.
It’s the best sequence of the film.
Despite the opening credits
sequence’s superiority to the rest of the film, it can definitely be said that
all of the dogfights are dynamic and visually impressive. Hemingway doesn’t
succumb to the tendency of directors today to turn their action scenes into a
hodgepodge of editing quick cuts that dissipates any semblance of continuity.
Helped to a large degree by CGI technology and Lucas’s experience with it, the
dogfights are fluid and make linear sense. Plus, those airplanes look great.
The non-action sequences are
another story. As a drama, “Red Tails” is like a freshmen directing and acting
workshop. Everybody, including seasoned veterans Cuba Gooding Jr. (“Jerry
Maguire”) and Terrence Howard (“Hustle & Flow”), comes across as if they’re
just play-acting in their back yard. Hey! Let’s pretend we’re the Tuskegee
Airmen! Ironically, both Gooding and Howard have played Tuskegee Airmen before
in much better movies.
The dialogue by
screenwriters John Ridley (“U-Turn”) and Aaron McGruder (“The Boondocks”) is paper
thin. It sounds like some sort of comic book writing aimed at nine-year-old
boys. The subtitled lines uttered by the German fighter pilots are laughable.
Most of the characters speak as if they’re constantly standing in front a body
of troops making some sort of inspirational speech. Not just the commanding
officers, every character is guilty of this behavior.
The characters themselves
are ridiculous archetypes. There’s an alcoholic commander, who is a drunk only
in the sense that he’s always taking a swig from a bottle. None of his actions
or decisions ever seems to be affected by his disease, although his “best
friend” accuses him of it. The best friend is so only in declaration; there
seems little to tie these characters to each other emotionally. There’s a
religious pilot, a musician pilot, a jokester, a rookie and a mechanic who’s
always yelling at the pilots for scratching his planes. Does that cover all the
bases?
The ace pilot, Joe (David Oweyolo,
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”), somehow finds time to have a romance even
though he’s “the best damn fighter pilot” the squadron has. The most unlikely
meet cute comes as Joe is limping his plane home from a mission where he almost
got himself killed, as usual. He sees a woman on a random rooftop waving at
him. After he lands, he’s able to steal a jeep without consequence and drive
right to the house that he only saw from above. Sofia (Daniela Ruah, “NCIS: Los
Angeles”) doesn’t speak a word of English, Joe not a word of Italian. Her mom insists on coming along on their
first date, but they eventually ditch the old lady. Soon they’re ready for
marriage, even though they’ve never actually held a conversation, not speaking
each other’s languages and all.
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