REVIEW – RED TAILS

RED TAILS
Directed by: Anthony Montgomery
Written by: John Ridley (screenplay, story), Aaron McGruder (screenplay)
Starring: Terence Howard, Cuba Gooding, Jr., David Oyelowo, Nate Parker, Tristan Wilds, Ne-Yo, Marcus T. Paulk, Michael B. Jordan, Andre Royo, Bryan Cranston, Gerald McRaney

Twenty-three years. It took twenty-three year for George Lucas (the STAR WARS trilogy, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, THX-1138) to bring RED TAILS, a project centered on the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American fighter pilots to serve in World War II, to the big screen. During those twenty-three years, Lucas worked on other projects, including, of course, the STAR WARS prequels and the fourth Indiana Jones film, directed, once again, by Lucas’ longtime friend and collaborator, Steven Spielberg, but he also commissioned multiple screenplays, eventually settling on a script written by John Ridley. Lucas should have either jettisoned Ridley’s script or hired another writer to rewrite Ridley’s script because what Ridley wrote or, perhaps Lucas rewrote himself, offers additional evidence of Lucas’ long, inexorable slide into sub-mediocrity.

RED TAILS opens in 1944, Italy. The 332nd Fighter Group (a.k.a., the Tuskegee Airman) has been relegated to non-challenging patrols behind Allied-held territory, occasionally wandering across a German ground convoy or train (blasting both to smithereens, of course). The airmen and their two senior officers, hunger for more, much more. They’re eager to put the hours of in-classroom training and flying skills into action, into combat against the German enemy. Incapable of shedding decades- or centuries-old racism against African-Americans, specifically African-Americans serving in the still segregated armed services, the high-ranking brass, personified by Colonel William Mortamus (Bryan Cranston), no doubt caused by racist beliefs and attitudes, believes that the Pentagon should terminate the Tuskegee Airmen program. Colonel A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard) fights to give the 332nd the chance to prove themselves in combat.

The band of African-American servicemen are, almost to a man (and character), virtually indistinguishable. Ridley’s underwritten, by-the-numbers script gives the airmen sub-banal, cringe-inducing dialogue, and an incidental detail or two, up to and including easy-to-remember nicknames painted on the side of each pilot’s fighter, the better to remember them when they’re engaged in aerial combat against the German Luftwaffe. Lucas gives the German fighter pilots a standard bearer (Lars van Riesen), dubbed ‘Pretty Boy’ by Easy. Pretty Boy’s a Teutonic, Red Baron-inspired pilot with impressive flying skills and an even more impressive facial scar. He manages to escape every encounter with the 332nd Fighter Group (until the last dogfight, that is).

In relative order of importance and onscreen time, the 33nd Fighter Group includes Joe ‘Lightning’ Little (David Oyelowo), the flight leader with a drinking problem, Marty ‘Easy’ Julian (Nate Parker), a fighter pilot with authority issues, Ray ‘Junior’ (a.k.a. ‘Raygun’) Gannon (Tristan Wilds), a science-fiction fan, Samuel ‘Joker’ George (Elijah Kelley), the de facto comedian, Declan ‘Winky’ Hall (Leslie Odom Jr.), Leon ‘Neon’ Edwards (Kevin Phillips), Andrew ‘Smoky’ Salem (Ne-Yo), so-called for his voice and propensity to sing the blues between missions, David ‘Deke’ Watkins (Marcus T. Paulk), a strong believer in the power of religious faith to get him through the war safely (he carries a postcard of his Lord and Savior, “Black Jesus,” wherever he goes), Maurice Wilson (Michael B. Jordan), a new pilot, and Antwan ‘Coffee’ Coleman (Andre Royo), the chief fighter mechanic.

Before we get to the climactic dogfight near and around Berlin, aided, like every other scene featuring air combat, by extensive use of CGI (a Lucas specialty), Ridley and RED TAILS’ director, Anthony Montgomery (TREME, TRUE BLOOD, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA), stop sporadically to allow their characters, regardless of rank, education, or background to deliver RED TAILS’ anti-racism message (it’s bad in case you’re wondering) via the aforementioned sub-banal dialogue. Bullard and Major Emanuelle Stance (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) in particular function to offer stirring, inspirational speeches or sermons about the skills and talents of the Tuskegee Airmen and how they should be given the opportunity to fight and, if necessary, for the country that treats them, at best, as second-class citizens or, at worst, as intellectually and morally inferior, unsuited for air combat.

The airmen overcome racist-based obstacles with surprising ease. Once they prove themselves, they’re welcomed with open arms and, more importantly, open wallets at the local officer’s club, the same club where minutes earlier (screen time, not real time), that threw out Easy when he tried to buy a drink there. That example, however, is just one of many, each offering additional evidence that Lucas wasn’t interested in verisimilitude, in a realistic depiction of the social and cultural obstacles African-American servicemen actually faced during World War II. Instead, Lucas wanted to impart a sugar-coated message or theme that 21st-century Americans can willingly and wholeheartedly (not to mention, unthinkingly) support. That’s fine (maybe) if you’re audience is made up of 10-year-old boys. It’s far less fine when it’s not.