Red Tails (2012) Reviews

• George Lucas doesn't know anything about aerial warfare!

  MadTom2012-02-01

  I'm a former US Air Force F-4 Phantom Weapons Systems Officer (backseater). You know this movie is crap when you start with a supposed fighter squadron commander who doesn't know the difference between a SQUAD (thirteen infantrymen) and a SQUADRON (48 fighter pilots). To paraphrase General George S. Patton, George Lucas doesn't know anything more about real aerial warfare than he does about f --- ing! (And George C. Scott may have said "fornicating" in the movie PATTON, but the real Patton used the real F-word!) Lucas was absolutely the worst person in the movie industry to do this movie. This movie is only the latest of many giant steps down the primrose path which Lucas started the world's movie-viewing public with the first STAR WARS movie in 1977; I distinctly remember the documentary on the making of that movie, in which Lucas patted himself on the back for patterning his battle scenes after what he claimed to be the most realistic dogfight scenes ever filmed, and at the same time in the documentary intercutting his scenes with those from A YANK IN THE RAF which were absolutely THE phoniest looking flying scenes ever filmed! And he hasn't bothered to learn jack about aerial warfare in the last 35 years; he's just conned most of the whole world into thinking his cartoonish creations are reality when they're the farthest thing from it. The technical fallacies are far too numerous to list. Lucas doesn't know the first thing about physics or aerodynamics, let alone the complexities of basic fighter maneuvering required to put bullets into another airplane and to prevent another airplane from doing that to one's own. He just makes his CGI airplanes do anything he wants them to do to fit his fantasies and fiction. Lucas is welcome to create his own sci-fi universe where he makes the rules. But for an "historical" movie like this claims to be, Chuck Jones could have made cartoon Mustangs imitating the Road Runner and cartoon Messerschmitts imitating Wile E. Coyote and his Acme gadgets, and they wouldn't have been any more technically inaccurate. But that's just about the technical fallacies and impossibilities. One of the biggest issues I have is that this movie was incapable of making the 332nd Fighter Group look good without taking cheap, lying shots at the other US Army Air Force fighter groups who fought in Europe in World War II. And it once again demonstrates George Lucas's total ignorance of aerial warfare in World War II, if not his blatant disregard for the truth. Fighters assigned to escort bombers did not fly in and among the bomber formations, and they certainly didn't stay there when enemy fighters attacked. Escorting fighters flew above and to the sides of the bomber formations, weaving in zigzag patterns to maintain their airspeed while staying even with the much slower bombers. To "stay with the bombers" meant disengaging from the enemy fighters and returning to the flanks of the bomber formation AFTER successfully driving off the enemy if not shooting them down within sight of the bomber formations, rather than pursuing the enemy back to their home bases. It was somewhat of an issue in 1943 when the P-51 Mustang had not yet been deployed to the front lines. The older shorter-ranged P-38 Lightning and P-47 Thunderbolt fighters did not have the capability to stay with the bombers all the way to targets deep in Germany, and the bombers suffered horrendous losses to German fighters past the range limits of the P-38s and P-47s. As more 8th Air Force fighter groups replaced their P-47s and P-38s with P-51s, tasks were rotated among the fighter groups between bomber escort and fighter sweep, the latter meaning that the fighters flew out ahead of the bomber route to intercept the German interceptors before they got within sight of the bombers, and/or destroy them on the ground on their own airfields. Total abandonment of the bombers was NEVER condoned. The 8th Air Force was primarily a bomber force, and by the Fall of 1943 the B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator heavy bombers were endangered species. Jimmy Doolittle, the commanding general of the 8th, was no dummy; his doctrine of employing fighters in both bomber escort and fighter sweeps reduced the bomber losses to 20-25% of what they had been before the arrival of the P-51. The Italian-based 15th Air Force quickly followed suit with that doctrine. The promise in RED TAILS fictionally given by Colonel Bullard (actually a thinly disguised version of the real-life Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.) to reduce bomber losses by 70-80% was in real life fulfilled by all American fighter pilots in the European Theater. They not only reduced the bomber losses to a fourth of what they had been, but effectively eliminated the German Luftwaffe over their own home turf wherever they found them, and not just near the bomber formations. RED TAILS insinuates throughout the length of the movie that the 332nd was the only fighter group that stayed with the bombers and that the other fighter groups violated operational orders and standing doctrine by abandoning the bombers in pursuit of German fighters for their own personal glory. The Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd had a more than honorable combat record and a story to be proud of, a story which could be told without trying to make other US Army Air Force fighter units look bad by telling falsehoods about them. The Tuskegee Airmen deserve better than that.

• This Movie SUCKS!!!!!!

  skull-212012-01-22

  The Tuskegee Airmen deserved better than this tripe! Their story is a marvelous one but Lucas has ham fisted it into a caricature. I am extremely disappointed by this film. I hope someday Hollywood will finally realize that truth is often...... more entertaining than fiction, particularly when it comes to aviation and history. These men were HIGHLY educated, technically astute, and physically fit. The USAAC/USAAF was doing everything in its power to disqualify black applicants for flying assignments by setting standards for them that were ridiculously high. The plan backfired, resulting in a Fighter Group composed of truly exceptional men. Yet NONE of this is conveyed in "Red Tails". We have an insubordinate hot shot, an alcoholic, a guy who likes to eat his pipe, and a mush mouth who just tells jokes. It would have been nice to see a Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, or Clint Eastwood treatment on the topic. Maybe an interview with fighter ace Lee Archer and a few other Red Tails, then a flashback to the TRUE story, not this one dimensional nonsense. A waste of some talented actors (and, my God, Terrence Howard was horrendous in this film) and special effects work (although some of the aerial choreography completely defied the laws of physics). The dialogue, particularly during the combat scenes is some of the worst I've ever heard. Also, the German "villain" is nothing like the Luftwaffe fighter pilots of World War II. These men were, as a whole, chivalrous and honorable, not to mention highly skilled and served for love of country, not for the fanatics who ran their government. The enemy in this film seems more like the Nazi/Hydra bad guy from "Captain America: The First Avenger" or something. Gag. The acting is wooden, the writing atrocious, and the scenes disjointed. There is simply no cogent, coherent narrative here. It is basically a film about dogfights with shallow "drama" piecing them together. This film could have been so much better, but alas, George Lucas can't see the forest for the trees and squanders an opportunity to make a truly moving, memorable film that honors these men the way they should be honored. Final analysis: This movie needs a lot more "Twelve O'Clock High" (a classic starring Gregory Peck, written by men who actually flew B-17s over Germany in combat) and a *lot* *less* "Pearl Harbor".

• One of the worst!

  joed16672012-01-22

  Horrible movie which did the same for The Tuskegee Airmen (1995) that Pearl Harbor did for Tora! Tora! Tora! Watching the movie, I felt like I was watching a Playstation game. The computer generated graphics were so unreal looking, unlike past WWII movies like Memphis Bell, Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. I expected far better from George Lucas but he made it look as if I was watching another of his Star Wars movies and his pilots were attacking the Death Star. There was also just too much unrealism like the P-40's appearing far superior to the ME 109's when in reality, it was the other way around. Or the four P-40's attacking the Luftwaffe base and practically destroying the whole base with little damage to themselves. Or the P-51 attacking the German destroyer causing massive explosions all throughout the ship, not to mention that by 1944, German surface ships were pretty much non-existent. And the B-17 bomber was a tough airplane and not brittle like the movie made it to be with wings sawed in half from enemy bullets. I also couldn't buy one of the white POW's who escaped with one of the Tuskegee airman (Junior), showing up at Ramstein air base to give them back Junior's dog tags then later on, Junior appearing back at the base. They were also very heavy with the touchy feely music throughout the movie. The history of the Tuskegee Airmen is a great story to tell but this movie did a disservice and all too predictable. It's just too bad that movies drawn from historic events cannot be portrayed that way and instead, have to be Hollywoodized! This must've been a major disappointment for Cuba Gooding Jr., who starred in The Tuskegee Airmen.

• What an insult.

  spentcasing2012-05-29

  I figured with names such as George Lucas, Cuba Gooding Jr and Terrence Howard that Red Tails had to be a great movie. I couldn't have been more wrong. To start with the acting was sub-standard, it was as though I was sitting through a high school play. Everyone was very robotic sounding, no heart and soul per se. Gooding's performance was his worse yet and him constantly gnawing away on his unlit pipe, which he was pretending to smoke became an ongoing joke, I think they meant to put CGI smoke in afterwards but perhaps Mr. Lucas forgot or ran out of money to spend. On the bright side it was nice to see the guy that played Rick Simon from the 80's show Simon & Simon was alive and well. The plot was absolutely miserable. Characters that had no place being there, in particular the Italian love interest of one of the pilots. It seemed like the intent was suppose to be a sidelined plot, but if that was the idea, it failed. She had no place in this story. All the white folk are made out to be racists, save a few kind officers who pull for the Tuskegee airmen to get a fail shake, the white fighter pilots come off as over zealot morons who abandon their task at every whim to chase decoys, there is an alcoholic pilot who would have been booted from flying long ago, the reckless one that does what he wants and disobeys orders, who would have been court martialed and discharged in the first 10 minutes of the movie, and the list goes on and on, it was unbearable. Also, in this movie, apparently pilots are not subject to the laws of physics and G-force. The CGI looked cartoonish. The fighter planes were doing stunts and manoeuvres that would be obviously impossible in reality. Trains that explode and derail when shot at by 50 calibre guns, it goes on and on...Look I know it is a movie and not a documentary, but it kills me when at the beginning of the film it boldly states that this movie is based on factual events. The only factual events in Red Tails is that there was an all African American fighter squadron who painted their plane tails red, PERIOD. Bottom line, this flick had B-movie acting, crappy direction, a God-awful script, corny dog fighting scenes, cheap CGI graphics, unrealistic physics defying stunts and a out of place musical score, hip-hop music over the closing credits, please. I wish I never saw this movie.

• Bad joke

  Easi2012-05-04

  After ten minutes I began to tell myself... this can't be it. I continued watching... it was it. A bad joke, a nightmare, rubbish. You know the constant sensation and the feeling that something is really wrong... I don't have that often with films... but this one managed. How I managed not to break it off and leave it be is something I still can't explain. From the first to the last dialog... nonsense, flat, cheese, even stupid, not funny at all, even when they searched fun. The characters... why bother to play? How it is possible, that good actors make such movies will always astonish me. The story... there are probably a lot of teenagers writing better stories. An accumulation of stereotypes. Blacks are cool, fun, indisciplined, all buds, unbreakable, superheroes. The white pilots are mean, racists. The Germans are just the incarnation of robotic evil... or something like that. Realism... no way! Nothing was believable... nor the actions, nor the acting... Lamentably it is not a film to forget easily... horrid films seldom are... because you are constantly reminded how stupid you were to have made the mistakes of believing it was something to see and then actually watching it till the end.