David Oleyowo in "Red Tails"; photo courtesy of 20th Centuryt Fox

“Red Tails” (20th Century Fox) 

When was the last time you saw a movie that was glorifyingly patriotic? When was the last time you saw a movie where the characters actually prayed to God for safety? The answer to these two questions is probably quite some time. But in “Red Tails” you get this and more. It is a rip-roaring patriotic film that tells us about real life heroes and how they became that way.

“Red Tails” is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, an all black squadron of pilots who flew and fought in World War II. Their main commander was Colonel A J Bullard (Terrence Howard) and their immediate officer in charge was Major Emmanuelle Stance (Cuba Gooding, Jr.). These two men fought as hard as they could to get their pilots treated with respect and assigned some actual combat duty.

As the war progressed they were successful in getting the “red tails,” as they were called because of the red coat of paint on their tail structure, assigned to fly air support for bombing units. Two of the main pilots were Marty “Easy” Julian (Nate Turner) and Joe “Lightning” Little (David Oyelowo). Julian was big on following orders but Little just wanted to be an ace pilot. This brought them into conflict on several occasions.

The movie starts out weakly. The acting is stilted and the planes look like they are just models. Honestly that is how it sounded and looked to me. But then as the film progressed the actors got better, the visuals were amazing and the plot became more and more interesting. By the middle of the movie they had me hooked and I stayed that way until the end.

The ending was a little abrupt. I would have liked a follow up as to what happened to these characters in the future. Many are still alive so I would have liked to have heard where they are now. They were all heroes and deserve our respect and our admiration. Knowing they really existed made me like the movie even more.

The film is rated PG-13 for violence and profanity.

“Red Tails” is a movie that is a real crowd pleaser. When I saw the film the audience clapped at the end spontaneously and that is a good sign the film entertained. Maybe Hollywood will get the message and make more movies like this one.

I scored “Red Tails” a flying 7 out of 10.