Review of Red Tails (2012) by Allan C — 01 Dec 2012

A great true-life story in need of a great film. Unfortunately, this is not it. The ariel sequences are terrific and the production values are top notch. You can definitely tell this was a passion project for producer George Lucas, but this film unfortunately also comes with Lucas' tin ear for dialogue and cliched storytelling (though he's not credited as one of the writers).

It an absolutely sincere film with very ernest performances by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, but the film fails to rise above being a cliched 1940s style war film. Essentially the film needed to be either more Steven Spielberg or more John Milius.

It needed the emotional resonance of say "Saving Private Ryan", but there are no scenes in this film even close to Tom Hanks' hand shaking as he drinks from his canteen before landing at Normandy or the scene where Vin Disel argues what to do with an orphaned child.

If the film wasn't going to go that route, it needed to go the John Milius path and create more of a homage to classic war films, doing something along the lines of Milius' "Flight of the Intruder" or "Farewell to the King".

The film is closer to the Milius mold, but it's nowhere as good. Writing about this now, I would love to see this story told by both Spielberg and Milius and compare the two films. "Red Tails" is certainly worth watching for anyone interested in the subject matter, but the film definitely feels like a missed opportunity.