2012
120 minutes
rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
The strongest aspect of director Anthony Hemingway and producer George Lucas's Red Tails is that it lives in a somewhat Utopian film industry where African-American dramas aren't all that big of a deal. The picture may have an unfair burden of proving the bankability of larger-budget ($58 million) genre fare revolving entirely around African Americans, but you don't see that sweat onscreen. It treats itself not like a test case, or a passion project for one of the more financially successful independent filmmakers of our age, but merely a B-movie action drama that involves actors like Cuba Cooding Jr. Terrence Howard, and David Oyelowo. Red Tails may be (unfortunately) an anomaly, but those behind and in front of the camera treat this as if it were one of many minority-led historical dramas that open each month at the local multiplex.
