Is it possible for special effects and action to carry a movie, even when the story, dialogue and characters leave something to be desired? In the case of Red Tails yes it is… just.
The story follows a group of African American Tuskegee fighter pilots who, while struggling against racism and prejudice within the military, are called into action to fight the enemy and prove they should have the right to do so.
Arriving, as it is, from executive producer George Lucas and director Anthony Hemingway, Red Tails is a film with admirable good intentions, telling a worthy story and punctuating it with genuinely awe-inspiring aerial battle sequences and also the quality CGI to back it up. The trouble is that whenever the planes land and the engines are turned off the film continually buckles under the weight of cliched one-dimensional characters, mostly sub-par acting (with the notable exceptions of Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr.) and entirely unneeded and mishandled sub-plots which drag the film to a complete halt.
At over two hours it is far too long, spreading thin a story across more ground than the script and actors have the means to cover. As it chooses to focus primarily on one thing it therefore gives off the impression that there’s a lot more meat to the real life story that’s been left out. Perhaps a TV mini-series would have been better suited to give a more in-depth and ultimately more satisfying telling of this heroic tale .
Luckily a good portion of the film takes places up in the air, amongst a barrage of bullets, engine smoke and diving planes where it really impresses. And with CGI that makes it seem far more expensive than it actually was, Red Tails delivers hugely on at least the spectacle aspect it was aiming for. It’s just a shame it’s not consistent with that quality when the drama is on the ground.
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