Red Tails

Starring: Nate Parker, David Oyelowo, Ne-Yo, Elijah Kelley, Marcus T. Paulk, Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, Bryan Cranston, Tristan Wilds
Directed by: Anthony Hemingway
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
2012

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A crew of African-American pilots battle racism and NAZIs as they fly above Europe during World War II.

Review:

Tim: I was interested in seeing this movie. First off, I absolutely love movies about aerial combat (for example, I loved Flyboys far more than I should have), and the story of the Tuskegee Airmen is such a powerful, important part of U.S. history. I was glad to see it get this big screen treatment. The film does a lot right, but in the end, the flaws are a bit too much. I would almost consider this a "good" movie, but it just misses out on that.

The difficult thing is that there really isn't anything particularly bad about Red Tails. It does a lot of things fairly well, others only decently. This is not a bad movie as much as it is an average one. I wanted to like this movie more, but I simply could not.

I appreciated that the film picked up with the Tuskegee pilots already in Europe. We didn't necessarily need to see them in training- I was glad we jumped right into the story. It was great to see the pilots flying low-grade missions- shooting up traffic, as one character puts it. We always want to see the huge aerial battles, but I thought this showed the quieter side to being a flyboy, and I appreciated that. The film wisely gets more intense and our pilots fly increasingly dangerous missions as time goes on. That was fairly well structured.

For the most part, I enjoyed the aerial combat scenes. The early plane verses train scene was really good, and I liked the plane verses ship scene later in the film. The special effects are pretty good throughout. Now, while I was interested in these scenes, I didn't think they hit the required level of intensity. I never felt like biting my fingernails or sitting on the edge of my seat. They were good, but they lacked any real suspense. That was a downfall of this film- those scenes needed to be more engaging.

I thought the characters were decent. We're introduced to a number of men in the squadron, but most of them are pretty forgettable. There's a whole subplot with "Junior", but this felt disconnected from the rest of the movie. I never really cared about his character at all. Same thing with "Deke"- there just wasn't enough character develop to get me to emotionally connect with that character. The film does a very good job of establishing "Easy" and "Lightning". These characters are helped by very strong performances from Nate Parker and David Oyelowo. These characters were interesting- the by-the-book leader of the squadron who has a drinking problem, and the fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants, rebellious top gun. Their relationship and their dynamic was quite interesting, I just wish we had more of that. Their characters were the most developed, and their scenes were among the best of the film.

As the cast is made up of mostly unknowns, we also get Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard thrown in for star power. It was fun to see both these actors in the film, and they both have some strong moments. However, they are clearly the supporting characters in this film. Their presence was welcome, but they don't really make a major impact on the film. It was great to see Bryan Cranston in a small (and thankless) role. I always love seeing him get work.

While I enjoyed the film, I never really connected with the characters. The battle scenes should have been overwhelmingly nerve-racking, but they were not. The movie is decent, but it is not good very often. I hate to say it, but this is a film from a director obviously making his first feature film. I really believe George Lucas felt a great deal of passion about making this film, but in the hands of a first-time director, this movie did not capitalize on its full potential. I believe Hemingway showed some promise here, but Red Tails leaves me wondering what this could have been in the hands of a better director.



Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Tuskegee Airmen, Flyboys, The Red Baron