RED TAILS

RED TAILS is George Lucas' earnest but unwatchable vanity project about the real-life Tuskegee Airmen - the valiant African-American WW2 air-pilots who had to overcome discrimination just to get inside an airplane, let alone fight the Luftwaffe.  This could've been the set-up for an epic war movie threaded with brutal political drama, the writing team either isn't up to the task, or isn't interested. Rather, this is a film full of thinly drawn characters, heavy-handed politics and dog-fights lifted straight from Star Wars Episode IV.    You could learn more about the Tuskegee programme in a quarter of the time by looking at Wikipedia. 

The movie takes place at an American airbase in World War Two, where the USAF's first all-black air group is picking off German planes in shitty hand-me-down aircraft, miles from the real action.  After some  lobbying from their Colonel (Terrence Howard) the boys finally get some new planes and a genuinely important mission - protecting the bomber groups mass-bombing Berlin.  The mission is selfless - passing up kills to protect the B-52s - much to the chagrin of some of the corps - but nonetheless covers the group in glory. End of. 

In front of the camera, we have a cast peopled with once-Oscar winners turned C-list actors (Cuba Gooding Junior), rap stars, a bunch of cast-members from THE WIRE, and David Oyelowo (RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES).  None of them do a great job - not even Andre Royo - but it just isn't their fault.  This is simply a badly put-together movie. Anthony Hemingway's direction is workmanlike -  John B Aronson's cinematography makes no attempt to show the reality of aerial combat - and John Ridley (THREE KINGS) and Boondocks creater Aaron Macgruder's script is as ham-fisted as anything every penned by George Lucas. 

I particularly hated the way in which the racial material was handled.  Time and again we see cardboard cut-out evil white people discriminate against our valiant lads before changing their minds because hey! they did a good job! rather than because hey! they deserve to be judged on their merits, and not have to work twice as hard for acceptance.  The love story between Oyelowo and his white Italian sweetheart is also absurd - as if she could've dated a black airman without her family seriously kicking off.

The only thing of merit in this entire film is Terrence Blanchard's score. The rest can safely be ignored. 

RED TAILS is on release in the US and Canada.

THE SPIRIT - disastrous noir spoof from Frank Miller

"The only thought in my mind was, 'It's too big — I can't possibly do it.' And I refused. And about three minutes later as I was at the doorway, I turned around and said, 'Nobody else can touch this,' and I agreed to the job on the spot".

Frank Miller should have trusted his instincts and passed up the opportunity to go solo and direct the feature length adaptation of Will Eisner's seminal 1940s weekly serial. 

The strip was a noir thriller about a rookie cop brought back from the dead, living under his grave stone, investigating crime in Central City. Miller gives the book the same treatment as SIN CITY - using digital backgrounds penned largely in gray scale with occasional flashes of iridescent red - and the film is extremely stylish as a result. Miller also does the decent thing in consigning The Spirit's politically incorrect sidekick "Ebony White.

Every other directorial choice Frank Miller makes is wrong. First, let's talk casting. Gabriel Macht lacks charisma as The Spirit. All the other actors turn in hammy, self-referential performances that are painful to watch. It's not entirely their fault. Miller has directed this movie as a pastiche. The movie literally takes the piss out of itself like some dumb SCARY MOVIE flick. The result is a complete waste of time: alienating, unfunny, plain embarrassing.  I just feel that Samuel L Jackson in particular needs to be really careful about taking these sorts of role - after SNAKES ON A PLANE and his increasingly mannered performances he's in danger of turning into a self-parody.  Jackson plays The Octopus.  Uh-huh.  Not only do we see The Octopus' face but we get to see him dress up as a Samurai, and as a Nazi, for no reason than because Miller wanted a bit of sport.  I mean, seriously, how crass can you get?

Avoid at all costs. 

THE SPIRIT is on release in Indonesia, Italy, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, the USA, Australia, Taiwan, France, Iceland, the UK, Denmark and Israel. It opens next week in Israel, New Zealand and Poland. It opens on January 15th in Russia, Brazil and on January 22nd in Argentina, Finland, Iceland and Norway. It opens on January 29th in Germany, on February 19th in the Czech Republic, on February 25th in Belgium and the Netherlands. 

TWO FOR THE MONEY - A diabetic's nightmare

This review has been written by Nik, who can usually be found here...

I didn't expect much from TWO FOR THE MONEY, and by matter of coincidence, I didn't get much either. It's hard to describe this film, because it doesn't easily fit into any one genre - not due to its depth or variety - but rather its chronic failure to set out its stall and nail its colours to the mast.

The story follows the life of Brandon Lang (aka Matthew McConaughey), who due to a career-ending injury as a professional footballer, ends up becoming a small time 1-900 number sports pundit. As his punditry proves successful, he is recruited by Walter Abrams (Al Pacino) to work in the big time, New York, high pressure, fast talking, amoral, slick and stylised world of big money gambling. Pacino's character is given just enough depth for his natural talent to shine through - and plenty of witty and cutting one-liners besides to keep the audience amused. But that's really where my praise has to end.

The rest of the characters were 2-dimensional at best - from Abrams doting wife (Rene Russo) - to the small town country-boy who lets fame go to his head (McConaughey) - to the rest of the mediocre cast who no sooner do they chip in their lines than they are instantly forgotten. Given that the film relies almost entirely on one line gags and remarks to entertain, it is sadly poorly written towards the end, loosing the audiences interest quickly as it starts to rely on its vapid plot in the second half of the film. The moral messages contained within this effort are trite, hollow, obvious and condescendingly delivered - and the ending is so sugary that your pancreas will wish you'd never have been born, or that you'd seen Lady Vengeance instead.

But the main problem with this film, as I alluded to earlier, is its lack of defined genre. Maybe it was mis-sold to me - I was expecting a violent gansta epic about a farm-boy getting in over his head in a world of gambling, pr*stitutes and organised crime - but while the film threatened to turn nasty, it was all foreplay and no org*sm. The closest we got was our hero getting held down and given an impromptu golden shower by one of his clients - hardly Japanese ultra-violence. But the film wasn't particularly funny either, it certainly wasn't a thriller in that it's wasn't thrilling, it weren't a sports movie as the opening titles threatened, the romance was contrived and it wasn't very dramatic. So if it's not a drama, not a RomCom, not a thriller, and not a gangster movie - then what the f*ck is it?

The answer is - not particularly good. This film promised little, and delivered in proportion. I'm not trying to pan it - it more than capably passed two hours I might otherwise have been touching myself or other people - and it's certainly not a "SPHERE" or an "ANALYSE THAT" where the only highlight was brevity. Some of the one-liners alone justified the entrance fee - or would have justified it had I not been mugged for £12.50 by the Leicester Square Vue. It's just that this film wasn't very good. It had very little to it.

It failed totally as a morality play - it had too little sex and violence to deliver any thrills and spills - it was only funny in parts - and the ending was so happy and clappy that I left the cinema wanting to kick the shit out of a helpless little puppy just to redress the balance of the universe. I also left the cinema with the awful feeling that had I been walking out 40 minutes earlier, I'd have been in a better mood, and been more fulfilled in general. I already know that happiness can't be bought, and that love and family should be put before money, I don't need to be force fed it by some asshole in LA who now has £12.50 more of the latter and has probably experienced neither of the former.

There's plenty on at cinema's these days, and this addition to the playlists is mediocre at best. Go see LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN if you want a cool gangster movie - or KIDULTHOOD is you want something "street" - or LADY VENGEANCE if you like asian movies about child cruelty. Or, if it's a really rainy day, you need to get somewhere warm to escape the elements, the price is low and there's nothing else on - go see TWO FOR THE MONEY. I cannot seriously recommend it in any other circumstances.

TWO FOR THE MONEY is currently available on Region 1 DVD. It is also on cinematic release in the UK and hits Germany on April 13th 2006.