It's a pity that a weak, ignorant, make-believe bit of film got attached to a band of real-life warriors. It's a pity that the true stories of how the Tuskegee Airmen and the 332nd Fighter Group fought and died for this country were so often distorted or ignored, and replaced by 2 hours of slack-jawed Hollywood stupidity. As if the reality wasn't important enough, interesting enough, or dramatic enough for a movie.
"Red Tails" does not honor the men of the 332nd. The movie constantly has it's pilots flying and fighting stupidly, irrationally, and sometimes impossibly, then awards them victories when in reality they would have been either shot down or grounded. The REAL Tuskegee Airmen EARNED their victories by being both smart and good! If the filmmakers had really wanted to preserve the their good memory they would have invented a fictitious group of black pilots for their movie instead of playing with the reputations of the real men who accomplished so much.
The only reason why I rated this film as high as a 6 and not lower is that other than the historical slurs it otherwise fits my definition of "sub-standard Hollywood schlock". It's a film that you can spend two hours laughing at, or simply staring at in stunned amazement by its seemingly endless sequences of the stupidly impossible, the stupidly improbable, and the stupidly pointless. A great film to keep you constantly amused by playing 'Spot What's Wrong Here'. A film that should only be seen for free, and even then only when you've nothing else better to do.
"Red Tails" does not honor the men of the 332nd. The movie constantly has it's pilots flying and fighting stupidly, irrationally, and sometimes impossibly, then awards them victories when in reality they would have been either shot down or grounded. The REAL Tuskegee Airmen EARNED their victories by being both smart and good! If the filmmakers had really wanted to preserve the their good memory they would have invented a fictitious group of black pilots for their movie instead of playing with the reputations of the real men who accomplished so much.
The only reason why I rated this film as high as a 6 and not lower is that other than the historical slurs it otherwise fits my definition of "sub-standard Hollywood schlock". It's a film that you can spend two hours laughing at, or simply staring at in stunned amazement by its seemingly endless sequences of the stupidly impossible, the stupidly improbable, and the stupidly pointless. A great film to keep you constantly amused by playing 'Spot What's Wrong Here'. A film that should only be seen for free, and even then only when you've nothing else better to do.
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