There are a lot of stories from war-times or just plain history that never get told. The Six Triple Eight is an attempt to be one of those untold story of unsung heroes. But since it’s written and directed by Tyler Perry who also is one of the producers as it was filmed at his own studio, it never really comes off as a monumental movie.
The movie is based on the story article “Fighting a Two-Front War” by Kevin M Hymel. And every now and again, there is a movie made on a real-life incident or period that seems more fitting for a magazine article and that’s all. However stretching it to a two-hour historical drama is very hard to do. It doesn’t help that the movie seems to cover the same territory that so many other movies set during segregation or the Jim Crow era have touched on and done better.
I’ve even heard criticism from black people that they’re tired of seeing these types of movies made over and over again. Under Perry’s direction, the movie avoids the “White Savior” trope but Perry has never been known for his portrayal of positive black women in his works. In his play, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, the protagonist, Helen, actually returns to her sleazy, cheating husband Charles because it’s the “Christian thing” to do. In the movie adaptation, it was different, but still there was a foolishness to the subject matter. You can’t make the subject of spousal abuse into a joke about punitive damages. (Well, you can, but it’s not funny.)
Since the movie focuses on the 6888 Central Postal Directory Battalion, most of the characters are black women. Sadly, they’re all the same cookie cutter characters from previous movies we’ve seen. Kerry Washington plays the real-life commanding officer Charity Adams who starts out as a captain of the Women’s Army Corps before being promoted to the rank of major. Washington does her best with trying to keep the role from becoming a caricature but there’s too many lines of her commenting on how everyone expects them to fail and they have to lead even more by example.
And you know there’s going to be the obligatory scenes where she’s too rough on the young and naive Lena Derriecot Bell King (Ebony Obsidian) before the young woman from Philadelphia learns what it takes to be a soldier off the field. There’s also the obligatory scene where Adams finally stands up the the ultra racist General Halt (Dean Norris channeling Boss Hogg) who takes in an ignorant southern accent that a three-star general would never talk.
Norris has the thankless role of being the main ugly white guy who is always sneering and mocking at these black women as if he despises them. He even does so during a cameo by Oprah Winfrey as the real-life Mary McLeod Bethune during a meeting with Franklin D. Roosevelt (Sam Waterston) and his wife, Eleanor (Susan Sarandon which some great hair and make-up to make her look like the real person). It is implied it was Eleanor working with Bethune to bring it to the attention of the military that there was so much undelivered mail from both Americans and the European theater.
Of course, Halt is the type who feels the war effort needs those trucks, planes and personnel to fight the war not deliver the mail. At one point he chides Adams for allowing those in her battalion to open the mail if they couldn’t read the handwriting on the envelope. There is a tense scene here and you can tell that Halt wishes he could hit or do worse to Adams as she stands up to him as it’s obvious he’s just looking for some way to criticize Adams’s leadership and have her replaced by a white person.
It would be a more powerful scene if it wasn’t more comical in the way it’s handled, especially since we get the follow-up scene where all the women applaud Adams. And then, we get the scene where the white soldiers applaud Adams and salute her. Norris and Washington are good actors and under a different director with a better script, the tension between the two would be more realistic as Halt is a man who is so disgusted by all black women he views them as vermin.
Spike Lee was able to handle this a lot better in his uneven war drama Miracle at St. Anna in which Walton Goggins played the stereotypical bigoted Army officer who didn’t want to serve or even be near black officers. But he was used sparingly and got what was coming to him. The racism was there but it wasn’t as in your face as Perry makes it. And this is a problem both he and Lee Daniels have made as filmmakers. They don’t seem to have the obedience directors like Carl Franklin, Lee and the late John Singleton brought to their works to show that the prejudice and bigotry is there like an itch that can’t be scratched but it doesn’t need to be constantly shoved in our faces.
Since Adams and Lena are the only two characters we really know much about, the rest of the WAC Battalion and other characters all seem to be out of Central Casting. The Army chaplain is obviously a bigot. Adams has to deal with white NCOs who are insubordinate and don’t salute her. There’s also General Lee (Scott Daniel Johnson), who given his ironic name, is actually supporting of the 6888. And of course, all the white women who are antagonistic to Lena and the rest of the battalion women are blondes.
I found something comical about the women forced to tape down their breasts because the uniforms were designed for white women. But it shows you how little the War Department and the armed forces cared about those who served if they didn’t have a certain skin color. Yet if this movie was made 25-35 years ago, it might have had a little more impact.
Now, it just seems like an unintentional parody of the genre. And to seal the deal, it’s also released on Netflix which seems to have turned into the streaming service version of that one movie theater which was once popular but now one goes to anymore. And it would show movies like these to a theater of only a handful people.
You can already 86 The Six Triple Eight from your queue and find the article to read instead.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 