Red Tails Blu-Ray Review

8th Nov 2012

Here we have the Blu-Ray release of what is the first Lucasfilm branded movie that doesn’t feature either Lightsabers or Bullwhips in nearly twenty years.

Yes, from Executive Producer George Lucas, Red Tails arrives bearing all the hallmarks of a passion project, particularly in terms of Lucas’s own personal involvement, as well as the subject matter and incredibly long gestation period the film has gone through to get to our theatre screens.

For those who didn’t catch it at the movies (and judging by the box office returns, that’s most of you….and us); It’s the story of the 332nd Fighter Group, AKA the Tuskegee Airmen, AKA the errrm….Red Tails. These guys were the first African American military pilots to fly in the USAF during World War II. The unit became very highly regarded, and much decorated despite the massive opposition and racial discrimination they encountered every step of the way. The film features the group’s aerial trials and tribulations of course, but also focuses on their efforts to be recognised and valued within the American military, as well as some of the interpersonal relationships within the group itself.

All in all, a very worthy tale to tell then, but question one on everybody’s lips was; is George Lucas the right beard to tell it?

I have decided to depart from the norm here and split this piece in to two clear parts. The first is a succinct and straight forward review of this Blu-Ray package, and will focus on the usual things specifically to do with that.

However, as we did not review the movie on the site when it came out, I have been moved to expand a little in terms of a proper review and critique of the actual film itself. Should you choose to read it, I have placed this expanded review section at the end of the piece.

Enjoy.

Part 1. The Blu-Ray Package

The film is presented in basic single disc Blu-Ray format, no frills. As you might expect from Lucasfilm, the picture and sound quality are top notch. My TV happens to have a dedicated THX picture setting on offer, and although I don’t always end up using it; It’s nonetheless my default choice when watching a Blu-Ray movie. Here, it worked really well, although I did tweak a few settings here and there, just to squeeze the very best out of the picture quality. The film does look glorious, and although some of the ariel FX can come across as a little over CG’ed at times, it is still possible to relax your eyes into the vista and really drink in the spectacle and high density clarity on offer. Colours are vibrant, and the light dances and pops off the shiny fuselages of those P41 Mustangs quite pleasantly. Worth mentioning is that there is a clear blood-link between the look of these ariel CG shots, with those that appeared in Lucas’s Star Wars prequels. This will either delight or turn off, depending on your personal feelings towards this particular style. It’s unconvincingly convincing, or convincingly unconvincing depending on your love of CG.

Audio on my system was well balanced and punchy, with the intensity nicely judged. It only really descends in to perhaps inappropriate or unwelcome Star Wars Podrace territory a few times, and considering the tone and depth of the rest of the movie; I’m actually surprised the sound mix is as subtle as it is. I was also pleased that the balance between dialogue and action pressure levels seemed sensibly judged. Although I’m a fan of wide dynamic range when it comes to audio, I find that many movies these days tend to maximise the action scenes to a point where you feel obliged to constantly ride the remote; pumping it up in the quiet bits, and hauling it back again when things get noisy. Red Tails avoids this particular annoyance quite well.

Before we move on, I must apologise for the frequent references to George Lucas’s most famous creation by the way, It’s not something I intended, but seems to be happening all by itself. Go figure!

Bonus Features:

The extras on the disc score a bare pass only, and don’t do much to add desirability or value to the overall package. There’s no Digital Copy, or Ultraviolet functionality for example.

What we do get, first and foremost is ‘Double Victory’ – A 66 minute documentary detailing the real life Tuskegee aviator’s amazing story. The film focuses mainly on the racism and hostility the airmen faced day in and day out, as well as some of the disciplinary scrapes they found themselves in as a result. The inclusion of this documentary is very welcome, as the disc would otherwise be extremely thin on any features worth a dime. It is well made, and quite fascinating; featuring as it does, several of the surviving airmen. However, despite this; I was rather hoping it would feature something of a debunking of the many factual inaccuracies in the movie. However, upon watching it; one does get the impression that it may have been made quite independently of the movie i.e. the two are only linked by their subject matter. Either way, it’s the single best bonus feature here.

What remains are three short talking head interviews with Lucas, director Anthony Hemingway and composer Terence Blanchard, a 5 minute FX featurette, a short behind the scenes featurette, and the theatrical trailer. The official blurb of the Blu release says there should be a further 20 minute documentary, however my review disc didn’t seem to have it. Either way, it’s not the best array of bonus features ever compiled, and is sorely missing a proper making of doc, a commentary track or two, or any input from the actors.

Happily, the retail price should reflect the slightly vanilla nature of the disc, making it a more attractive proposition.

It is of course entirely possible that a more comprehensive package might appear at some point at a higher price point. However, the lacklustre box-office performance, and critical drubbing of the movie in general might mean that this package remains the only Hi-Def option.

Part 2. The Film

As alluded to in my introduction; when I first heard about Red Tails and in particular, when I heard it was coming from George Lucas; I was concerned. What would Lucas do with a historical tale of this sort? What were the dangers if he got it wrong? It’s fair to say that, although this writer happens to be fairly informed on his WWII history; a movie like this will, for many others (particularly those outside of the United States), be the first time they’ve ever even heard of the Red Tails. This means the movie has the potential to misinform and mislead viewers if too much license is taken with the truth. I was fearing some kind of U-571 level of historical truth mangling right from the off. This story is surely more than worthy enough to be told without artifice and over embellishment is it not? Well, It was while bearing this in mind on several levels, that, as I said, I for one felt a little concerned about it being a Lucasfilm production. The idea of Mr Star Wars sitting in the executive command seat, was more than a little worrying….and I’m still a fan at heart, despite the Prequels and Indy 4. Thankfully, he does not direct, but watching the film betrays either an extraordinary degree of synchronicity between Lucas and director Hemingway, or (as I suspect), an enormous degree of bearded control emanating from Skywalker Ranch.

I am not delighted to say (and not at all surprised), that my fears of what the creator of Jar Jar Binks would do with this amazing story are realised rather too exactly in the final film.

You could probably forgive George the inclusion of a few recognisable Star Wars sound effects creeping in here and there (a Lightsaber clash here, some blaster fire there, even a TIE Fighter at one point I’m pretty sure), but couple this with the exact kind of awkward cockpit dialogue we all know from the Death Star attack in Episode IV, and things do seem to begin to be finding a certain level. It’s not a level that seems to suit the subject matter however. I’m just thankful that a Vader “Nooooooooooo” wasn’t obvious anywhere in the sound mix, and that none of the pilots were overweight lest they be called ‘Porkins’. Of course, the dogfight scenes in Star Wars were intentionally constructed to echo the type of WWII newsreel footage Lucas was seeing as a kid, so it does follow that when approaching creating the ‘real thing’ for Red Tails; the crossover and similarity would be obvious, and inevitable. For this reviewer however; it just didn’t sit well in addition to the overall tone of the movie, which is lightweight and ineffective.

As you might have guessed already, I found it almost impossible to enjoy this film on anything but a most perfunctory level. I would be lying if I said there weren’t elements here and there that I did enjoy, but it’s small potatoes compared to all the entries in the minus side of the ledger.

Where do I begin? Well, In typical George Lucas fashion, the passage of time is something to be avoided in every way possible. The entire film (just like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies before it), seems to take place over no more than a few days. If you’re paying attention, there are plot points that dictate otherwise, but the impression persists nonetheless. Naturally, movies often compress events to one degree or another for dramatic effect, but Lucas is fanatical about it. Seriously, go put Star Wars on (sorry younger folks, I mean Episode IV: A New Hope), and count the days. Oh i’ll do it for you, if you’ll Indulge me for a second: Ok, so we have the droids arriving on Tatooine on say Monday late afternoon, being sold to Luke on Tuesday morning, and R2-D2 taking off on his mission to find Obi-Wan that evening. Wednesday morning they go look for Artoo, and by lunchtime, Aunty and Uncle are prime rib, the Jawas are kindling, and Luke really wants to be a Jedi like his father (who, just that morning, he thought was a navigator on a spice freighter). By the afternoon; Luke, Kenobi, and the droids, have hired Han and Chewy, and are on their way to their date with destiny. Finally, by the middle of the very next day, Luke uses the force (which he didn’t know anything about the day before), to fire a pair of photon torpedoes perfectly in to the Death Star’s tiny little 2 meter, unshielded, thermal exhaust port, causing a catastrophic chain reaction that sets the Empire’s plans back six years….. oh! and later that day they all get medals, except Chewy, apparently ‘cos he’s only a Wookie. Total = 4 days tops from beginning to end.

Moving on, and on a more serious note; one of the things that disturbed me most of all about Red Tails, was that so much of the movie’s dialogue and battle scenes rather approach things from a point of view that assumes you, the viewer, agree that indiscriminate air to ground killing is fun, noble, and fantastic. It really is a case of the good guys are the good guys, and the bad guys are entirely, without exception, bad. They might as well have had white hats and black hats, it’s that….err black and white. Lucas is not a man of nuance or depth it would seem, and we are supposed to think that as long as it’s German air personnel and ground crew that are getting blown to smithereens by dudes strafing them in fighter planes, then we’re all for it. At one point, early in the film, one of the more rookie pilots is lamenting the fact that all he gets to shoot is ‘traffic’ (referring to the opening scene, in which he randomly spots a Nazi supply truck trundling along minding it’s own; and has some brief fun reducing it to blobs of scrap metal and flames). There is an oft recurring sense in this scene (and in fact, throughout the entire movie), that the writers are intentionally avoiding the fact that there were any human beings killed in that (or any of the other) one sided exchanges at all. Those of you who are more gun happy than I, might try and make the whole ‘Well, war is war’ argument, and there’s some mileage in that. But Red Tails fails to acknowledge or deliver any depth of emotion in it’s copious carnage and destruction. I’m not saying that the movie ought to be some thought piece on the morals and horrors of war, but other movies have managed to at least depict something of the humanity, and internal conflict that comes with the job, as well as tell a heroic story. Where is this nuance in Red Tails? It’s just not there; the actual killing part goes completely without mention, and the action remains sanitised and cartoon-like. Rookie pilot is bored and unfulfilled obliterating trucks and trains, but never spares a thought for the human cost of his boring life’s activities.

The movie also manages to exhibit a few wiffs of a certain (rather dated) American attitude to WWII i.e. the over-emphasis solely on the USA’s involvement, to the neglect of the other allied nations (particularly the British). Now, to be fair, I don’t know if the real Red Tails ever saw active duty involving deployments of actual ‘Allied’ forces in Europe, rather than just the very obviously US forces exclusively seen in the movie, but it certainly felt a little like the old USA v Germany 1941 to 1945 treatment so common in mainstream hollywood once upon a time, and it’s bloody annoying. Now, Red Tails doesn’t ever go to U-571 lengths of rewriting history to favour a USA’centric story, but it all adds to the woeful 1 dimensionality of the film’s overall tone and honesty.

I’m not going to bother detailing much of the casting, as I feel it is of little consequence in a review of this sort, suffice to say that the core group of young pilots actually acquit themselves reasonably well with what they’re given, particularly in juxtaposition to the mysteriously ineffective performances of the two senior players. The tragic romance sub-story (or should that be sob-story?), is delivered with all the emotional strength you would expect from the man that brought you Anakin and Padme, so needless to say, one cannot invest in it.

So about those senior players: Firstly, Cuba Gooding Jr just seems miscast as Major Stance (no jokes please). He seems far too youthful to play quite this seasoned, and grizzled, a pipe smoking officer (although of course it’s entirely possible that this is historically accurate I guess). It doesn’t feel right to me, and almost has a degree of the Bugsy Malone about it when he pops his pipe in his mouth and pulls a grizzled face, it’s like he’s doing an impression. I assume Mr Gooding Jr’s presence here might have something to do with his having been in the 1995 TV movie The Tuskegee Airmen with Laurence Fishburne? Who knows.

Worse than Gooding Jr for me though is Terrence Howard as Colonel Bullard. He seems to conduct himself throughout the entire movie like he’s got an ironing board down the back of his ill-fitting uniform, and is about to cry. It’s very odd, and I guess we must put it down to the woefully insubstantial and flimsily constructed dialogue he’s being cajoled into saying. I don’t know, it’s paper thin most of the time, and it doesn’t matter how good an actor you are, if the lines you’re saying have all the depth and sassiness of a road sign, you’ll look bad.

It’s mostly bad.

They all look bad.

Ok, I think I’ve made my point, so I’m going to wrap it up here by saying that Red Tails delivers what you would expect if you have been paying attention to what George Lucas has been doing since Return of the Jedi. If you want a pop corn movie with some engaging SFX combat, or if you just really love P41 Mustangs (even CG ones), then you might be able to get something out of the movie. If you are after a solid, dramatic and involving piece of work that really gets deep down in to the heart and soul of these pioneering airmen’s struggle, then look elsewhere….except you can’t ‘cos no-one else is telling the story.