Damn! There are far few worse things for a movie critic than to go into a movie you really want to like, one you really want to write positive remarks about and you not only end up not being able to do that; but, you find yourself forced to write negative notes about it. “Red Tails” from Executive Producer George Lucas is such a movie.
“Red Tails” tells the epic World War II tale of African-American Tuskegee Airmen who break the color barrier. After only being given remedial air missions, this group of fighter pilots is finally given real combat missions that include giving bomber planes proper cover in order to complete their bombing runs.
The opening scene of “Red Tails” is an aerial dog fight between American and German planes. If you produced an action backed, edge of your seat type of battle, you will have your audience’s attention for the remainder of your movie. Unfortunately, the opening battle does not accomplish this mission. It is an utter failure.
Just because you fail to capture your audience in the first battle scene does not mean you have lost your audience for the rest of the picture. You just have to work extra hard to get viewers back into your movie. You can do this by making the remaining dog fight scenes spectacular. You can get some great actors to give some of the best performances of their careers because caring about your characters will be a key element to a successful movie too. However, “Red Tails” fails to do this over and over again.
This is Anthony Hemingway’s first feature length theatrical movie. He has a very long list of directing credits in the world of television. This man paid his dues and deserved a shot at directing a feature film. There was a lot of news about how this movie was privately funded because a studio was nervous to back a movie that was composed of an all African American cast. This movie HAD to be successful otherwise no studio would even consider doing another one in the future, so Anthony Hemingway may have a felt a great deal of pressure to make a great movie. If that was the case, the pressure got to him and he failed to deliver a solid product.
Besides the fact that almost every action sequence in the movie is hardly compelling, “Red Tails” is not particularly well acted either. This was a SHOCK considering the great talent that was cast. Being given the likes of Terrence Howard, Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. and so many other well-established actors and having lackluster performances be the result is not what a director wants.
We’ve scenes in other movies during which the characters give inspirational speeches and we, the audience, feel drawn in to the moment and incredibly moved. When those scenes occur in “Red Tails” we feel nothing. The musical score used in those scenes is all wrong and brings you more out of the moment rather than in. Part of the reason why the air battle scenes don’t work is partly due to the poorly matched musical score.
From a technical aspect, the movie is fine. The special effects are good. The sound design is excellent. But, we need more than that to spend our hard earned money on a movie. We all remember the amazing dog fight scene at the end of the original “Star Wars”. When the first trailers to “Red Tails” initially came out with George Lucas’s name on it, we all hoped we would get more of the same. That is not the case with “Red Tails”. It is rated PG-13 for some sequences of violence.
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