Review of Red Tails (2012) by Xborn74 — 11 May 2012

"Red Tails" (2012) is a film (fictional, but based on real events) directed by Anthony Hemingway and written by John Ridley, based on a book by John B.Holway, which tells the story of a team of African- American pilots, in the Tuskegee training program at a time when racial segregation was diffuse and explicit in society and in the army.

The movie presents production of George Lucas film with excellent fight scenes and aircraft recreations, one of the best films in this aspect of computer graphics recreating battles of World War II, despite having literally a more "clean" and idealized scenarios than in reality.

The land filming are also very well produced and well cared for, until the rebuilding of items used at the time and the scenario itself, but again too clean ans sterile to be real.

The retraction of everything in the film, is reminiscent of a romance book with bright colors and spreading posters that refer to the fictitious character of the story without forgetting the important events they represent, and in many parts recalls Star Wars in some scenes (perhaps by association). However suffers from the excessive romanticizing of the environment of World War II, for example in the Italian city where the team has its basis, nor does it seem that they are in plain Second World War, in a country newly taken by the allies.

My other criticism comes from the viewpoint of someone who likes aviation, especially the period of World War II:

The recreation of the battle scenes are perfect graphically, with minute details on the planes, but is erroneous in part by using unrealistic characterization of the fighting, the ease with which German pilots were destroying bombers (it was not so easy to fly among the fire defense ), and in the fighting scenes, where many German pilots have almost no skills, especially against pilots recently started in the fighting.

Another thing is about the explosiveness of various vehicles such as ambulances, which in reality were destroyed and not exploded in tremendous fireballs.

The characters have reasonable performances, and different for the various main characters, who make up the cast, each with a distinct personality of each other, but suffers from overuse of clichés for both the allied Afro-American characters, as for the Germans (we have the classic German pilot scars on the face and evil nature).

This among many other things that do not match, such as flight and strategies including the use of some aircraft in inaccurate roles and fictitious defense strategies, which do not correspond with reality. The research on the appearance of the aircraft was very good, but on the conditions of their use was not. Some combat scenes though graphically very good, just like the characters, are characterized and more like a video-game / light romance than a movie about war, which in other respects make the general overview of the film as a matinée of the 50- 60's, highly romanced and unreal.

The unfolding of the story the film tells how this group, that was segregated even from the white pilots, won an opportunity to show their value equality among whites in battle theaters in Italy and Germany (at the end of the film). Among the main story we have small portions of drama and romance by distinguished members of the squad.

The highlight of the film, is to show the history, which must be unknown to many people of the general public. Another film that must be watched on the subject is HBO's "The Tuskegee Airmen" (1995), which is a little more realistic.

In the end, this movie turns out to be a choice for an uncompromising movie for fans of aviations scenes in general, or who wanted to know some more about this historic event, excelling in the subject of the aerial scenes, but sinning by the characterization of characters and excessive romantic dramatization.