Diversity

Red Tails opened this weekend at number two bringing in a very respectable $19.1M. George Lucas has been trying to make this movie for the past twenty-three years and finally got so tired of the studios rejecting the idea because the cast was predominantly Black that he put up his own money. He paid for everything out of pocket, including the damn prints, to get the story of the Tuskegee Airmen into theaters nationwide.

If this is the kind of thing George is spending his prequel money on, I applaud him. It shouldn’t be this fucking difficult to make a movie about one of the most important Allied flying units of World War II. It’s about time Hollywood realizes that a good story is a good story regardless of race or ethnic background or culture. And if it takes Jar Jar Binks money to break down that door, I’m proud to give George my money.

So what’s it like flying with the Red Tails?

First, the bad news. It really pains me to say it, but, well, I didn’t think this was a good movie. Too much of it just didn’t work for me. There’s a love story that’s based on nothing, there’s a Nazi prison camp segment that seems tacked on, the characters we’re supposed to sympathize with are kind of jerk faces. Now the good news. If I didn’t like it, chances are it will do very well. I am clearly not dialed in to the pulse of most movie goers. If my tastes reflected a majority of film audiences, we’d have some really weird shit in theaters.

Normally, I’d spend some time warning you of all the painful things you will sit through should you choose to sit through two and half hours of war movie. But I really want this to do well and I think people should ultimately make up their own minds when going to the theater. And as much as I didn’t really like much of the movie, there’s one thing that kept me wildly entertained. The P-51 Mustang.

Flies Like An Angel

The P-51 Mustang is a gorgeous aircraft. I have this gigantic book of World War II airplane illustrations and the Mustang has always caught my eye. There’s a character in the film who says something to the effect that it looks like it’s speeding even when it standing still. That’s the beauty of its lines in a nutshell. It’s a sexy damn airplane and you get to see a whole lot of it throughout the film.

Certainly there was a social aspect that kept this movie from theaters for so long. But honestly, I don’t think the air battles would have looked as good as they do if this movie was made twenty-three years ago. The dog fights alone are almost worth paying full price to see them on a big screen. They way they’re shot and edited really put you in the action. There are so many shots that we’ve never seen in an air battle before. Honestly, they almost put Star Wars dog fights to shame.

The P-51 is a scene stealer. Every time you see it on the screen, you forget the cheesy dialog and the horribly written one-liners. You forget the comically evil German fighter pilot or the terrible voice-overs of the bomber pilots. You forget that you’re watching a movie and instead get absorbed by the areal ballet of bullets and propellers playing out before you. It’s a beautiful thing and it’s gotta be scene on a huge ass screen.

Warts and all, I had a good time. There were enough air battles to make me forget a lot of what I wasn’t liking. Cuba and Terrance turn in some really good performances. You can tell they had a lot of fun with this movie. It was great seeing some of the cast from “The Wire” on the big screen. I left with a smile on my face. It’s not the best war movie, but you know what you’re getting into.