Soundtrack Review: Red Tails (2012)

Red Tails Soundtrack Review: This is a review of the film score Red Tails by Terence Blanchard.

"What this score needs is a proper heroic or action theme that this score could have built on."

Red Tails tells the story about a crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program. The problem is, no one wants them in the air, but someone wants to change that and puts them to the test. Directed by Anthony Hemingway starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Gerald McRaney and David Oyelowo this film has even George Lucas listed as Executive Producer. The score is composed by Terence Blanchard.

Track List

It's been a while since we heard from Terence Blanchard and I have to admit I was really curious about this score. I am just not seeing Blanchard doing a World War II dogfight film but here it is. Once I got that out of my system I was already envisioning the score based on Blanchard's previous scores, but I was once again taken by surprise. It's a mostly orchestral affair, but it sounds more modern than your typical World War II score.

It's a nice mix between quiet cues like 'Junior Medical / Luntz Screening' and action cues like 'Operation Shingle'. Actually the action part is not as interesting as the more heroic and quiet cues. This is an action film so I am judging this score as an action score and I can't quite connect the dots. It all feels very laid back and not very frantic except for a few moments.

Conclusion

What this score needs is a proper heroic or action theme that this score could have built on. As it stands, it never pushes the envelope and so feels a little flat and uninteresting. Decent effort and I was positively surprised by Blanchard, but we can hear that this is not his bread and butter.

->Buy the CD on Amazon<-

->Buy the MP3 Album on Amazon<-

->Buy the Album on iTunes<-

Listen to the Red Tails soundtrack by Terence Blanchard below: