Movie Review of Red Tails
According to several articles I have read lately, it has been George Lucas' intention to make a film about
the Tuskagee Airmen since the 1980's, but he hasn't been able to find a studio that would support it,
claiming that audiences wouldn't be interested in seeing a movie with an all black cast. I don't know if they
really believed that or if they were just too afraid to tell George that his script was corny and
disappointing, but whatever the case may be, Mr. Lucas had to fund the project with his own spare
change...no doubt last Tuesday's Star Wars action figure sales covered it nicely.
THE GOOD: If you are unfamiliar with the premise of this film, it recounts the history of the first African
American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces-the Tuskagee Airmen, who fought in World
War II during a time of rampant bigotry and racial segregation. The concept is a worthy and fascinating
one, and I was highly anticipating a great and inspiring film. With actors like Cuba Gooding, Jr. (Major
Emmanuel Stance) and Terrence Howard (Col. A.J. Bullard), you would expect some really fine work.
Well, lower your expectations. The idea behind this movie had real potential, and the fact that we are
given the opportunity to see these men prove that they are every bit as talented and brave-if not more
so-than their Caucasian counterparts, IS inspiring. However, among ALL the actors in the film, black and
white alike, only one of them seemed to be slightly more than one-dimensional, and that was David
Oyelowo, who played Joe "Lightening" Little, a likeable but somewhat reckless pilot who is completely
averse to following orders and aspires to be the Tom Cruise of Tuskagee (referencing Maverick in Top
Gun, for anyone who thought I was taking another pot shot at Tom Cruise again). Mr. Ayelowo is mostly
believable and comes across as a character that has some depth, in a crowd of others who deliver line
after cheesy line, which brings us to....
THE BAD: How someone can take such a striking and courageous part of history and insert such inane
and absurdly ridiculous storylines and wordings is beyond the scope of my understanding. For example,
we have the airman (Oyelowo) who, while flying by an Italian town, somehow manages not only to spot a
beautiful woman hanging up her laundry, but is then miraculously able to locate exactly where she lives.
Following this logic, these two end up falling madly in love, even though she speaks 2 words of English
and he speaks even less Italian-not to mention that under Mussolini's rule, interracial marriage was about
as accepted in Italy as it was in the US. Apparently we had to have a romantic storyline to distract us from
the all the bad acting. Egads. It would have been more endearing to focus on the families these men left
behind than to try and create a love story in what should have been a heart wrenching historical piece.
For good measure, there is also some German guy that keeps showing up to, apparently, make sure we
understand that the Germans are the BAD guys in all of this, and he keeps spewing stupid lines like "Die
you foolish African!" And as bad as all the acting was, as insipid as the dialogue seemed to be, my brain
finally reached its aneurysm point when, in what I can only assume was someone's misguided attempt to
lighten things up, a white soldier says to "Junior" (played by Tristan Wilds) "well, at least they won't be
able to see you in the dark". This is in reference to a group of soldiers attempting to break out of a
German POW camp in the middle of the night. Groan.
THE UGLY: Racism, plain and simple. When some white soldier in an Italian officer's club spouts off the
N word, it's uncomfortable and it's sadly a fine example of the stupidity that abounded at the time, and
that unfortunately still carries on today with some people.
When our kids were little, we drove out to California from Colorado to take them to Disneyland, and, as a
surprise, to take them to the ocean. We thought it would be fun to tell them that we were taking them to
the world's largest swimming pool and to see the look of joy and amazement on their faces when we got
there. Instead they started to cry and were kind of angry at us for misleading them. Not that the ocean
wasn't NICE and all, but where was the diving board and giant waterslide?!
I felt kind of the same way after walking out of this movie - the story of the Tuskagee Airmen is a good
one, but I was led to believe this film would be GREAT and they did a huge disservice to these amazing
men by trying to glamorize it instead of just letting the story be told. Somehow they managed to turn an
ocean into a swimming pool with no waterslide.