Red Tails (2012)

★ 6.6 2h 5m 675 votes IMDb

Drama War History

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.

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Cast

Bryan Cranston as Colonel William Mortamus Age 70 · Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA Bryan Lee Cranston (born March 7, 1956) is an American businessman, entrepreneur, actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director and producer. After taking minor roles in television, he established himsel...

David Oyelowo as Joe 'Lightning' Little Age 50 · Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK David Oyetokunbo Oyelowo (/oʊˈjɛloʊwoʊ/ oh-YEL-oh-woh; Yoruba pronunciation; born 1 April 1976) is a British actor, director and producer. His accolades include a Critics' Choice Award, two NAACP Imag...

Cuba Gooding Jr. as Major Emanuelle Stance Age 58 · The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA Cuba Mark Gooding Jr. (born January 2, 1968) is an American actor. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Emmy nomination. He was born in Bronx, New York to Shir...

Daniela Ruah as Sofia Age 42 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Terrence Howard as Col. A.J. Bullard Age 57 · Chicago, Illinois, USA Terrence Dashon Howard (born March 11, 1969) is an American actor. Having his first major roles in the 1995 films Dead Presidents and Mr. Holland's Opus, Howard broke into the mainstream with a succes...

Andre Royo as Antwan 'Coffee' Coleman Age 57 · Bronx, New York, USA Andre Royo (born July 18, 1968) is an American actor, producer, and writer. He is best known for his role as Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins on the HBO crime drama series The Wire. Other television appeara...

Director Anthony Hemingway

Cast Bryan Cranston, David Oyelowo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Daniela Ruah, Terrence Howard, Andre Royo, Robert Kazinsky, Lee Tergesen, Matthew Leitch, Michael B. Jordan

Per Gunnar Jonsson 5/10 Apr 13, 2014

I have to say that I was a wee bit disappointed in this movie. I felt it was surprisingly mediocre and very “Hollywood”.

The good parts are the flight scenes and the special effects. They are enjoyable to watch and reasonably well done. However, that is pretty much what makes up this movie in terms of enjoyment.

I would say that a lot of it is not very realistic. The German anti-aircraft guns seems to be next to useless most of the time for instance. Also, there is the scene where a single P51, armed with nothing but machine guns, takes out an armed German warship in two quick runs. That felt quite unrealistic.

A lot of the film also felt too much like some Hollywood drama. Some of the pilots behave like morons and in real life they would have been shot down rather quickly. The alcohol problems and the romance seems to have been thrown in just to appeal to the American soap-opera viewers. The entire movie is very shallow and if it was not for the budget and special effects it could very well have been a TV-movie.

Most of this movie I was yawning in my seat and waking up only when the flight action started so that I could watch the special effects.

GenerationofSwine 1/10 Jan 12, 2023

Yeah, I came into this long after seeing HBO's Tuskegee Airmen, which kind of stared everyone on earth and was brilliantly acted and had a great and compelling plot.

So this is kind of a bias review.

Compared to the HBO original movie, Red Tails has better special effects but that's about all. The story is worse, the plot is worse, the acting is worse. The history is worse, and I like to give movies a wide breath for artistic liberty.

It tells a love story instead of a Tuskegee Airmen story. It replaces drama with fx.

Walk away and dig up the HBO movie from the 90s.