RED TAILS

I went to see George Lucas (Producer of Star Wars  ,for those of you living under a rock) movie , "Red Tails" with my wife and daughter last night...It's a 2 hour action film that was done very well...This is not the first time a film has been done about the Tuskegee Airmen...There was another film that featured Laurence Fishburne, Andre Braugher ,Malcolm Jamal Warner and incidentally, like this one... Cuba Gooding Jr..


Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard were the best known actors in this movie, but the actors playing the fighter pilots are outstanding.Newcomer Nate Parker as Captain Marty "Easy" Julian is a restrained trained pilot, while David Oyelowo plays the talented, difficult Joe "Lightning" Little. (My favorite charactor in the movie for various reasons.)


In 1941, the black airmen trained at Tuskegee Institute broke the racial barrier. The pilots and ground crew were determined to contradict a 1925 Army War College study that concluded blacks were "mentally inferior and not as courageous as the white man."

They proved their worth when the 332nd Fighter Group, with its red-tailed airplanes, was assigned to protect U.S. bomber groups attacking Germany. They brought the vast majority home safely.

In one of the finer scenes in "Red Tails," a group of black pilots walking past the Officers Club in Italy are called back by a white officer.Black officers were not allowed in the "Officers" club back then. Reluctantly they turn around to face what they believe will be an attack.

Instead, the officer wants to thank them -- he's a bomber pilot and the Red Tails had brought him and his 10-man crew back alive. He invites them into the club, introduces them to the startled, hostile white airmen as their saviors, and all the pilots, black and white, end up drinking together.

There's a discussion between white and black pilots of the different labels that African-Americans have been given. As one white pilot says, "We call you colored." A pilot shoots back, "We prefer Negro."

In a more telling moment in the same scene...an Airman played by singer Ne Yo says to a white officer...."When yall get mad, yall turn red...When you're jealous you turn green with envy...and when you're afraid...you turn yellow and yall call us
colored!" The white officer has to laugh..It is perhaps the funniest and yet realest moment in the film in that it demonstrates humanity, a commonality if you will.

The love story between one of the Black airmen and an Italian girl who he marries begs the question of what would've happened to them after the war. Would he be able to take her home to America? Would he come back for her? The film answers the immediate question, but not the larger one. Of course, we know the answer to that!


I don't want to spoil it by giving away anymore of the movie...but you should go to see it...The buzz on Facebook and Twitter is encouraging...Hopefully This movie will help George Lucas at least break even on his investment.