Social Experiment Film Review! 

Red Tails

Original movie script title: "Black Tail"

Directed By: Billy Patton, the illegittamite black great grandson of World War 2 hero, General S. Patton

Starring:

-Rick Otto (the black John Wayne)
-Tristan Wilds (the black Gregory Peck)
-Terrence Howard (the black Sylvestor Stallone)
-Cuba Gooding Jr. (the black Arnold Swarzenneger)
-Bryan Cranston (the black Marlon Brando)
-Nate Parker (the black Brad Pitt)

Distributed By: African-American Film Distributors

Rating: ICABG (Interracial Combat Action involving Black men VS Germans)

The Plot: 

The United States Government, growing sick and tired of hearing rap music during the height of the war in Europe during World War 2, decides to draft many young black rappers into the airforce, give them delipidated air planes that could barely fly, a handful of ammunition, then send them out against a vastly superior and highly skilled German airforce.

The Review

What in the world was George Lucas thinking? This is the man who gave us the hit movie Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Now he's doing films about black men who supposedly learned how to fly complex airplanes despite the fact that every racists during that time had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that black men could NOT fly airplanes. So essentially George Lucas is perpetuating a myth by showing a film about black men flying and battling nasty (but darn handsome) German Luftwaf pilots. I checked on the internet to see if black men could fly and all I got was a website called, www.fakeblackpilots.com!

As you can determine, this film is set in the past, and I give kudos to the authentic feel of the film. All of the buildings, and cars, and stuff look pretty darn legit. The clothing, etc. all look like they came out of the 40's. But that's where the authenticity stops! Because all of the characters act like they are in the 2000's. In short, they act like you and I!!! People are saying, "I wanna give a shout out to..." and "I'm working 24 / 7" -phrases and statements that were unknown back then. Not only that but black me can be seen fraternizing and touching (!) white women! Something that was super taboo back then. And it went the other way around too! There was one scene where a white man took a black woman home to meet his parents and instead of disowning him or shooting him dead on the spot they welcomed her with open arms into their family. Now I know that all whites weren't racist back then but this still makes the film seem to be set in the present, you know. It doesn't create a sense of environment at all.

Despite the lack of historical truthfulness in the dialog of this film, when it came to the airplanes and the training of the black pilots the whole film felt realistic. Like it was actually happening. When the USA government puts out the order to, "Round up a bunch of niggers and teach 'em how to fly a plane if you can", the hostility against blacks is felt pretty strongly. One black man, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. refuses to learn how to fly, so they chain him up and force him to change his name to Kunta Kinte. Althought this a blatant rip-off of the classic TV series, "Roots", it did go over well because it made the viewers (audience) think about how hard it was for black men to have any other name besides "Kunta Kinte" in the past.

The utter shamefullness of this era in American history is unabashedly put on display in this film. Many scenes show how the blacks had to literally rebuild their planes just days before flying into battle against the superior German airforce. During one attack sequence a couple of the pilots, played by Kobe Bryant and Shak, have to apply glue to the wings of their plane during a lethal dogfight high above the Earth. I'm glad this story is essentially fiction because if that's what my black brothers had to do in the past to earn the respect of America then I would have been satisfied shining the shoes of white businessmen instead.

But some of the depictions of racism in this film I feel are not honest. I believe that George Lucas himself may be the ultimate racist--he created a film that on the surface looks like a type of race relations improving film. Blacks helping to save the country that enslaved many of them! What a great, patriotic(?) theme. But in certain moments during the film I can perceive that Mr. Lucas is the one who wants to figure out what he's gonna do with the "niggers".

For example, there is a scene where the black pilots are trying to eat in a military cafeteria with a bunch of their white co-warriors. The black pilots aren't paid as much as the whites and can only eat a little bit of food. But then a few of the white characters get up and offer the blacks some of their fried chicken, collar greens, and other forms of "soul food". I don't believe that whites during the 1940's would have done this because it would've been too blatently racist. But I believe that Lucas wrote this scene at the last moment in order to make his black actors feel happy about the low pay he was giving them.

Some notes on the acting: All good stuff. Each actor was bold and challenging in his attempt to get control over the film (which is essentially what actors do when on the set), but they were no match for the Cuba Gooding Jr. who acted like he was a sports hero again as Terrence Howard begged the Pentagon for a better plane for him.

But don't get me wrong, my job as a critic is to force people to think about the films they see, hear of, think about by being bitterly opposed to the success of filmmakers worldwide. So when I indicate that a film is "bad" it's just because I want the people who made that film to start to think more about the art and science of making films. AND I want them to pay for trying to rip off the public by shoving a bunch of junkety junk into our collective face.