Friday Preview: Red Tails

Red Tails

This is George Lucas' first production since the Star Wars prequels. He has been trying to get this movie made since the late 80's, but has had trouble finding financing and a distributor for the film due to it's all black cast and unknown black director. The special effects and the action sequences look fantastic, but the dialogue in the trailer looks a bit preachy. Lucas has said that he wanted to make an old fashioned war movie with true heroes without faults. I liked Spielberg's War Horse a bit, and that was supposed to be a throwback movie, too. Whether this is a good movie or not will depend on how the actors playing the pilots do. Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Terrence Howard will give the corny speeches that were in the preview, but the lesser known actors have a chance to make this a memorable movie instead of the usual trash that is released in January.

The Director - Anthony Hemingway - This will be his first feature directing job, however he has quite a few excellent television credits. He has directed episodes of The Wire, True Blood, Community, Battlestar Galactica, Treme, and Fringe.

The Writers - Aaron McGruder, John Ridley - And here's what has me worried about this movie. Ridley's biggest credits are as the creator of the Barbershop TV series and the head writer of the Wanda Sykes show. Then McGruder is the creator of The Boondocks on Cartoon Network. I haven't watched any of these shows, but this seems like a pretty big jump in production size. At least Anthony Hemingway was directing big budget television shows.

The Actors
Terrence Howard - I didn't like Hustle & Flow, but he seems like a good actor. Doesn't look like he has much to work with in this movie though.

Cuba Gooding Jr. - This type a movie only needs one guy to give long spirited speeches. Seems like an unnecessary character to me.

Bryan Cranston - I haven't seen Breaking Bad yet, so I'm not sold on him as a great actor.

The pilots - No big names, so we'll see how they do.
Nate Parker, Tristan Wilds, Elijah Kelly, Leslie Odom Jr., Kevin Phillips, Cliff Smith(aka Method Man),

Early Reviews
Michael Phillips - ** out of 4
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/sc-mov-0117-red-tails-20120119,0,1748740.column

Roger Ebert - ** 1/2 out of 4
http://www.rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120118/REVIEWS/120119986/-1/RSS

Colin Covert - ** out of 4
http://www.miami.com/039red-tails039-pg-13-article

Owen Gleiberman - B-
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20483133_20556657,00.html


May the Force be with you,
CHUD