BEFORE: And then, after FDR had a picnic and went to his, um, happy place, the U.S. entered World War II. Which led to many movies, including this recent one. Linking from "Hyde Park on Hudson", Elizabeth Marvel also appeared in "Lincoln", and so did David Oyelowo. That was awfully convenient.
THE PLOT: A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Memphis Belle" (Movie #1,185)
AFTER: There are a number of things I can't control when I determine my rating for a film. One is the ratings given by others, and I try to not let those scores influence my own. My score should reflect only MY reaction to the film, and that can be influenced by whether I enjoy the topic in general, or how I felt the story was executed, or a host of other factors. Still, I usually find that my score is about 1 or 2 points below the IMDB average, and I usually just account for that by considering that I'm probably a little more nitpicky than the next guy. This is an unusual case, where my rating was a point higher than the IMDB average, so I took a look at the prevailing complaints about this film.
First, some had a problem with the way the film seems to drop us into the middle of story of the Tuskegee Airmen, with no portrayal of the formation of the unit, or their training. However, I think that if the movie were too detailed, it would have ended up being too long. You've got to draw the line somewhere, and I didn't mind starting in at the point it did, because they alluded to the fact that the squadron was not being given important missions to fly up to that point, so the early stuff could have been very boring.
Anyway, the initial sequence depicting white fighter pilots chasing after German planes and in so doing, failing to properly protect the Allied bombers, worked fine as a set-up, contrasting with later scenes where the main characters stayed with the bombers as they were instructed.
Next complaint - unrealistic portrayal of dogfights? I'm not really the best person to address this, because I'm not an expert on World War II planes, or combat tactics in general, or the physics of flight, for that matter. I didn't really see anything that stuck out as a huge error in the combat between planes. In the course of telling a story, perhaps sometimes technical details need to be glossed over or ignored in order to maximize the drama or suspense, or to hit certain story beats, but again, none that I noticed.
If anything, the dogfights reminded me of the X-Wing battles from the first "Star Wars" film, but I realize how backwards that sounds, since George Lucas (also a producer on "Red Tails") used WWII movie dogfight footage as his original inspiration for the climactic battle in Episode IV. So again, I'm not the best expert on this, just an expert on "Star Wars".
Final complaint - the portrayal of race relations in the WWII European theater. This is a complex issue that I don't have time to tackle, plus I wasn't there, so I can't really say things were this way or that way. This is the story presented to me, and if says that racism was present, I'm not inclined to disagree. If you tell me that the Tuskegee Airmen had to fight twice as hard because they were also fighting for equality, who am I to say otherwise?
Sure, the acting here is quite wooden in some parts (another Lucas trademark) and some of the more common stereotypes from war movies show up here. Which is why this scores where it does for me, and not higher. I was entertained, but I still see some ways in which the film could have been improved.
Also starring Cuba Gooding Jr. (last seen in "Outbreak"), Terrence Howard (last seen in "The Brave One"), Nate Parker, Bryan Cranston (last seen in "Larry Crowne"), Tristan Wilds (last seen in "Half Nelson"), Ne-Yo (last seen in "Battle Los Angeles"), Michael B. Jordan (last seen in "Chronicle"), Elijah Kelley (last seen in "Hairspray"), Marcus T. Paulk, Leslie Odom Jr., Method Man (last seen in "The Sitter"), Lee Tergesen (last seen in "Point Break"), Gerald McRaney (last seen in "The A-Team"), Daniela Rush, Lars van Riesen, Rupert Penry-Jones, Andre Royo (last seen in "Super")
RATING: 6 out of 10 Messerschmitts
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