Red Tails Review:

The story of the all black fighter pilots is one I feel can't be told enough.  It was a major triumph of overcoming tremendous adversity and racism.  Unfortunately, that isn't the story this movie wants to tell.  If you want to hear that story, HBO had a made for tv movie called The Tuskegee Airmen.  The best way to explain my position is to compare Red Tails to The Tuskegee Airmen.  If you want my concise review, Red Tails is a good movie with a lot of bad acting and not a whole lot of depth.  It's more of a look at what they did during the war and downplays what they went through just to get to that point.

The beginning of these two movies is drastically different.  In The Tuskegee Airmen, the movie starts in basic training.  It emphasizes how much racism they went through just to learn to fly.  Any excuse the instructors could find to send them home, they found.  In Red Tails, they start with the 332nd already in Italy.  There is the racism element in the movie, but it's so much more low key it's like the movie is ashamed to even go there.  But here's the problem: that is the story.  Yes, the 332nd is a highly decorated fighter group.  What they did was amazing.  But you can't talk about what they did without talking about how hard it was just to get an opportunity.

In Red Tails, the major subplot of the movie was the life of one of the pilots named "Lightning".  Much is made how reckless and talented he was.  Many times he was outright disobedient.  Another part of it was a romance story between Lightning and a local Italian girl.  Honestly, it didn't have any emotion behind it.  It's a subplot that is just there.  She didn't speak much English and he didn't speak any Italian.  It's a little hard to believe there's anything there other than physical attraction.  In The Tuskegee Airmen, the subplot is World War II.  The success of the pilots is secondary to the struggle against racism.  I think that makes a more interesting story.

Red Tails is a good movie and it's worth seeing.  But I'd wait to rent it rather than going to the theaters.  In the meantime, try to find The Tuskegee Airmen.  It's better and well worth watching.