Red Tails
Cuba Gooding Jr.
Terrence Howard
David Oyelowo
Nate Parker
Tristan Wilds
Directed by Anthony Hemingway
121 minutes

Red Tails is the story of a group of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American fighter pilots in World War II. It starts with the squad returning from a routine mission (taking out enemy ground transport). Martin “Easy” Julian is the straight laced by the book leader. His best friend and thorn in his side is Joe “Lightning” Little.  A train approaches that may or may not be the enemy. Easy orders to return to base, but Lightning on a hunch goes on the attack.  And the brotha was right, the train was carrying weapons for the Nazis. After destroying the train, the squad returns happy they had something to do but Easy grouses at Lightning's increasing disregard for orders.

Base is pretty humdrum since blacks aren't allowed to really do anything of use. The squads superior officer, Col. Bullard (Howard) is trying to get his men a chance to truly prove their mettle with the higher brass. Despite the Army's belief that black men show cowardice in the face of danger and not mentally capable of the skills needed in combat (you can find actual documentation of this in training manuals from that time period) Bullard is given his chance. Seeing Bullard's stoicism in the face of these incredulous “facts” made me wish there was more done with that character.

By the time the squadron is assigned their 1st task of escorting a fleet of bombers, we are introduced to so many characters there is no way to get to know them on a deeper level. While the Airmen themselves are supposed to be the main character if you will, it doesn't work as an ensamble. In particular Neyo's southern charcter's drawl was so irritating I'd wince whenever he appeared onscreen. Besides the characters Easy, Lightning, and Bullard, another airman, Ray Gun had charisma and myself and the audience I saw it with pulled for him, but there were large gaps in his story that went unanswered.George Lucas did not write the film, but it did suffer a
lot of cringe worthy dialogue that fell flat. 

Red Tails shines with it's performances by Oyelowo(Rise of the Apes, The Help), Howard, and Parker. And of course the aireal dogfights. Lucas himself watched dogfight footage from WWII when planing out the X-Wing/Tie Fighter battles in Star Wars: A New Hope. For dramatic content and character development, HBO Films "The Tuskeegee Airmen"still holds up and is highly reccomended. I do admire Lucas for his drive to get this film made. He's essentialy fought for it for I believe 28 years he said in an interview. And he got a lesson as far as what Hollywood power players think about black flims. They passed and refused distribution. Lucas did what pioneer black
filmmaker Oscar Micheaux did. Distribute it himself with his own money.