Over 20 years in the making, producer and uncredited co-director George Lucas claims that Red Tails was repeatedly turned down by studios who worried that a film with a mostly black cast wouldn’t be marketable. Which would be a very sad state of affairs. But something else may have been at play: noble intentions notwithstanding, this cliché-ridden, oversimplified, melodramatic gesture is just not a good film. Which is also a very sad state of affairs.
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States’ armed forces, serving during World War II. But living in a world where “studies” claimed they were intellectually inferior to whites, they had to fight the military’s racial segregation for the right to prove themselves and engage in combat.
It’s truly inspiring stuff, which is why it’s such a pity the movie is such decidedly made-for-TV fare – no doubt a result of hiring television veteran Anthony Hemmingway to oversee (CSI:NY, The Wire). Limited by his runtime of two hours, Hemmingway’s film becomes a muddle of war-movie stereotypes, from the swelling music; historical, exposition-laden monologues; horribly clichéd “go-get-’em” speeches; and of course the predictable caricatures: the steely officer (Cuba Gooding Jr., mistaking smoking a pipe for giving a performance), an arrogant Colonel (Terrence Howard), the reckless daredevil (David Oyelowo), the alcoholic squad leader (Nate Parker), the doomed loverboy, and the blues-singing comic relief.
The acting is perfunctory at best, as are the CGI-laden airborne dogfights and the dramatisation of the characters’ struggles. Their persecution is so greatly watered down that it rarely resonates – and so neither does their resilience and bravery in the face of it.
It’s hard to slate a film that attempts to shed light on and pay tribute to these incredible men. However, a lack of originality, depth or insightfulness results in a movie that is dull and – ironically - thoroughly uninspiring.