Red Tails Review

Director: Anthony Hemingway

Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr., Gerald McRaney, David Oyelowo, Andre Royo, Terrence Howard

Running time: 125 mins

Certificate: 12A

Synopsis: A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard.

Behind RED TAILS is the important and influential real-life historical tale following the lives of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program during World War II. The film follows their fight (and flight) against being kept away from the front line and the war effort.  They’re separated and left behind to do those jobs that no-one else wants to. In RED TAILS, the true story is brought to the big screen by screenwriter John Ridley (THREE KINGS), directed by Anthony Hemingway (TREME, THE WIRE) and produced by George Lucas, yes, that one.

Although RED TAILS does focus on a number of characters, only a couple really stand out. David Olelowo as Joe ‘Lightning’ Little is impressive as the daredevil pilot of the crew who has to learn to fly with the team, if they’re all to become part of the bigger picture. Another strong performance is Terrence Howard, as Colonel A.J. Bullard. His fight is against the top brass of the military, as he tries to not only keep his squadron in the air but also make sure their talents are noticed enough to help with the war effort.

Cuba Gooding Jr co-stars as a commanding officer who, with all the best intentions, encourages them to do the best with what they’ve got, but his performance is underwhelming and his reliance on a pipe to enhance his authority looks like a last-minute idea and becomes inadvertently comedic.

It feels like Hollywood could have taken a courageous nosedive into this true-story and truly get into the gravity of what happened but… it doesn’t quite pull up. It undoubtedly takes note of the idea behind-the-reality and when we’re in the air, the fight scenes are vivid, brave and impressive but this doesn’t take away from the lack of depth once we’re back on land. There, the story is thin, the script painfully clichéd in places and it dishearteningly disappoints.

I was hoping for a strong, military historic story of bravery, fighting-against-the-odds in changing times, when these pilots were perfectly equal and utterly mistreated and then onto their eventual success. We do see this, we are shown it but we don’t really feel it and, strangely, the great air battles and their CGI maybe take away from this a little. Sure, there are unexpected deaths, great flight sequences but it’s all a bit too shiny and, somehow, dated but not in the way intended.

To summarise, David Olelowo and Terrence Howard give strong, driven performances with heart, honour and honesty. On one hand, this is a great way for the real story to get noticed and maybe it’ll be picked up again in the future and we’ll get something grittier. I just felt that the studio had a chance to explore deeper into the truth and temperament of the times but, unfortunately, RED TAILS is great opportunity not fully realised and therefore, ironically, never quite takes off.

 Red Tails opens in the UK on June 6th