By Jonathan Smalls, Film Critic
George Lucas tried. He really did. He had a genuine admiration, and respect for the Tuskeegee air men, and their sacrifices in integrating the armed forces during World War II. He had a pretty good cast of actors, a rich history of real events to base his story on, and all of the time in the world. Unfortunately what he lacked was any semblance of a decent script.
The plot has its moments much as a broken clock is right twice daily, but most of the time it only gets an A for effort. It jams too many story lines into a two hour film: the fight for equality, dissent among the troops, opposing a known villain, a love story, a POW story, the list goes on in addition to the actual combat. You can probably guess that when that much content needs to hit the screen in a fixed amount of time, none of it gets the treatment it deserves. The characters usually just blurt out a few lines so that audiences are not completely lost, and then Red Tails moves onto the next scene.
Within these scenes there are even more issues. For one thing an air man successfully woos an Italian girl without speaking any Italian, and without her speaking any English. They just hold hands for a few scenes, and then he proposes. There is also the fact that this same guy is able to blow up a naval destroyer with just his bullets, and no help from any one else. Then at the end of the movie the squadron gathers to mourn the loss of one of their pilots. It is a very sombre, and sobering moment as the colonel says a few words to honor the fallen, and motivate his troops. Then another one drives up in a jeep after being MIA for a few scenes, and suddenly no one cares, and it is a party.
Usually audiences can look past a weak script to a few stand out performances. Red Tails has its moments. Brian Cranston is sufficiently vile to make us despise him, but he is around for one scene, and then is never seen again. Terrence Howard, and Cuba Gooding Jr manage a few moments, but they are pretty crippled by the lines that they are forced to deliver. The only actor to escape the script reasonably well off is lead David Oyelowo. Even that is not because his lines are any better, but because he has so much screen time that we eventually HAVE to feel for him much like Stockholm syndrome.
I want to keep this part short. Save your time. Save your money. Red Tails means well, but it is worth neither. Wait for some one else with a better, more focused script to come along, and do justice to a proud, and often forgotten part of our national history.
