2012 Review #2: Red Tails

Red Tails

Rated PG-13
2 Hours 5 Minutes

Starring:

Cuba Gooding Jr.
Terrence Howard
Nate Parker
David Oyelowo

MY GRADE:
D

I don't claim to know much about the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, but I do know that those men were fighters in more ways then one. I know they were loyal American heroes despite the racial barriers and they were some of the bravest men fighting in the war. Red Tails is supposed to be a movie that shows us this. It's supposed to show us the racial oppression and pull on some emotional heart strings and make us appreciate them that much more and what they did for our country. To me, Red Tails did not do that at all.

Personally I blame it on a few things. George Lucas wast trying to do good here. He used his "own money" (as if that's supposed to make us feel all warm and fuzzy for him or something) to finance and produce this film. Now he did not direct or write this film, but man does this movie scream George Lucas all over. From an audience member standpoint, after watching this film, I truly believe Lucas controlled the writing and directing of this film. It was one of the corniest, cheeseball movies I have seen in a very, very long time. Lucas is not known for his abilities to write or really even direct superbly. These actors are supposed to be portraying American war heroes who defied odds and battled racism to defend our country, yet every single one of them come off as some silly cartoon or sitcom character. Every one of them delivers multiple horrendously corny lines and you cannot take any of them or the film seriously.

The movie has a few characters and subplots that are so useless and prove nothing in the end. Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad is in this film for two scenes. He plays the stereotypical General or whatever he was, who is totally against African Americans serving in the Army. You would think in the end, going off film stereotypes, that he would open up his heart and change his mind...but he doesn't. That's because he never shows up again after the second half of the film and makes his character pointless. There is a subplot where one of the main fighter pilots gets caught by Nazis and thrown in a prison camp with other white American soldiers. In one scene alone he helps them escape and everyone believes he's dead, only to show up randomly at the end like nothing every happened. Point being, there was to much unnecessary story going on, it was to busy. Oh and the whole romance storyline...just silly. All the other technical aspects weren't up to par either, except for maybe some pretty solid visuals (which Lucas IS good at producing). The music throughout the whole film was so light hearted even during the action scenes and you never really felt anyone was in danger...even when characters were in mortal danger. They made these guys so one dimensional and laughable that if one of them blew up you were like "who was that again? Oh well."

The performances were pretty bad. But I blame that on the poor writing. There were SO many badly written lines. You could not take a single character seriously. I didn't believe any of these guys to Tuskegee airmen. It was almost as if they were intending to a spoof film or some light hearted comedy about a subject that isn't funny. Even veteran actors Cuba Gooding Jr (Oscar winner for Jerry MaGuire) and Terrence Howard (Crash) were unbearable to watch. It's like they were just playing cliched, stereotypical characters. Almost offensively so.

I never really wanted to see the movie, but my buddy wanted to so I went along. He said it best afterwards though, he said the movie was really amateur. And it was amateur, kind of like some high school kids trying to put a movie together, that's what it was like. I respect the attempt to bring a story like this to the forefront, I mean it's been done before, but still. But the director just did not do the history an ounce of justice. At least, not in my opinion. I just kept waiting and waiting and waiting for this movie to end. It seemed like it never would. I hate that feeling while watching a movie. I really do.