Eye Candy #599 - "Red Tails"

Red Tails:  For a storied organization like the Tuskegee Airmen, who really are deserving of a “Band of Brothers”-type treatment, this film is quite frankly an embarrassment.  “Cliché-ridden” doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of this wildly superficial retelling of some of their exploits, with stereotypes in place of real, developed characters, engaging in every hackneyed World War II movie plot device.   Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding Jr. portray the leaders of the 332d Fighter Group, some of the first African American pilots in the American military during World War 2.  Based in Italy and operating out-of-date aircraft, they are consigned to ground attacks on trains and convoys.  The 332d is withheld from front-line combat action before distinguishing themselves during the Allied landings in Anzio.  Soon they find themselves as the fighter escorts for various waves of American bombers, saving more planes than ever before (and apparently doing this single-handedly throughout the American military).  The rest of the airmen cast is composed of C-D list actors and non-actors.  And keeping with the superficiality, every White serviceman is shown the film is portrayed, at best, as racially insensitive, and, at worst, as a raving racist.  Produced by George Lucas, this is one of his rare steps outside the Star Wars universe (which is good, because usually those steps are disastrous, like “Howard the Duck” or “The Radioland Murders”; this is no exception).  He even directed some of the re-shoots here.  But the bulk of this misfire is the responsibility of someone else.  Director Anthony Hemingway has spent his entire career on TV prior to “Red Tails”, and this film feels very much like a glorified, overlong TV episode.    It’s short on accuracy, it’s short on humanity, and it’s short on any reason you would want to watch this.  “Glory” this ain’t.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”