RED TAILS

Red Tails is blessed with some fantastically realized aerial dogfights that manage to save what would otherwise be a flat, uninteresting WWII drama unworthy of its subject matter.

Producer George Lucas spent more than two decades trying to get this film made, but the result is a wooden, artificial-feeling would-be epic that feels a lot like a mid-level made-for-TV movie. Turns out, this is the feature-film debut of its TV-centric director, Anthony Hemingway (CSI: NY, True Blood, Treme), so the small-screen vibe of the proceedings makes sense.

The story revolves around members of the Tuskegee Airmen, African-American pilots who battled racism from their fellow (white) soldiers while simultaneously defending their country during the Second World War. In Red Tails, which is set on an Italian air base, we meet a handful of fliers, from reckless renegade Lightning (David Oyelowo) to squad leader Easy (Nate Parker), marble-mouthed Smoky (Ne-Yo) and young upstart Junior (Tristan Wilds). Though the characters are different, their underlying goals are very similar: namely, proving themselves in some way, be it to their comrades (Junior), their superiors (Easy) or the comely Italian girl with whom he’s smitten (Lightning).

Problem is, none of those stories are particularly compelling. We never really get to know the characters because there are so many of them, which means screen time is spread very thin, and caring about their struggles starts to feel like a responsibility rather than a natural byproduct of the filmmaking. That is, it seems like the filmmakers just assumed people would be engaged in the lives of these men because of the stories (of the real-life Tuskegee pilots) they represent and, thus, phoned in the screenplay. Much of the dialogue is clunky and old-timey, and the audience I was with actually giggled on occasion because of the cheese.

The actors aren’t bad, with Oyelowo’s hotshot ace and Wilds’ eager youngster the standouts among the lot. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard have what amount to glorified cameos as Tuskegee officers, with the former delivering the Great Motivating Speech and the latter doing little more than chomping on a big pipe that smacks of Needless Prop Syndrome. Too bad the only woman in the entire film is Daniela Ruah, as the aforementioned paramour. Not only does she come off as inauthentic and not of that era, she is so clearly not at all Italian, making her line readings (in Italian, no subtitles) completely distracting.

What keeps the film from crashing and burning is, as mentioned, the slick and skillful CGI work that makes everything happening in the air a breathtakingly realistic, edge-of-your-seat sequence with genuine thrills, suspense and how-did-they-DO-that?!-ness. Each time the action returns to the ground, however, the energy disappears and the proceedings dull right down.

Any story of the Tuskegee Airmen should be inspirational, aspirational and educational, reflecting the courage and tenacity of these history-making men. Unfortunately, Red Tails just doesn’t.