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Truly Dreadful Film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Pros 1. Howard E. Rollins does a fine job commanding the center of this story. It reminds me a little of his work as Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Milos Forman' 1981 film Ragtime: another movie based on a play about an African-American man seeking justice in a racist world. Thankfully Captain Davenport is a lot more level-headed that Coalhouse. Though when you think about it: Peterson is more like Coalhouse in the sense that Coalhouse only became homicidal after his innocent wife was killed and Peterson would never have killed Sergeant Waters if Water had't have had a hand in CJ's demise.2. No review of Soldier's Story is complete without praise for Adolph Caesar's wonderful Oscar-nominated performance as Sergeant Waters. He brings complexity to the role to make Waters more than just a self-serving a-hole. You can tell that his racial views are damaging him long before anybody every thought of killing him.3. Coming from director Norman Jewison, it's not hard to see similarities between this film and "In The Heat Of The Night": an African American going down south and dealing with racism while he seeks justice for a crime. To avoid too much comparison with "In The Heat Of The Night", Jewison wisely focuses more on conflicts between African Americans than racial tension. Not that the racial tension isn't there, it certainly is. 4. The movie is a powerful exploration of how racism can cause disharmony even within a race. Sergeant Waters no doubt endured a lifetime of racism and rather than fighting back, he lashed out at other African Americans for making the race look bad and things only got ugly from there. Captain Davenport seeks justice but admits at the end that he was a little too quick to suspect that Caucasian soldiers did Waters in.5. The music is superb. Patti Labelle was worth every penny. The fact CJ could play so well made it all the more tragic his talent never survived the war. 6. It's good that they do have decent Caucasians in the movie like the superior officer who forced the Caucasian soldier to obey Captain Davenport during his interrogation and the soldier who told his friend to leave Sergeant Waters alone since Waters was obviously drunk.7. Best Line: Davenport: Who Gave You The Right To Judge? To decide who is fit to be a negro and who is not?Cons 1. It's a little confusing because one moment it's established that Waters seemed to like CJ (they have a pleasant conversation in the bar) than the rest of the story claims Sergeant Waters has special scorn for him. 2. After CJ's death, the soldiers throw the last game in revenge for CJ. All it does is deny them a chance at playing The Yankees so it seems to hurt themselves more than the superior officers.

A very dense film about the black soldiers in 1944-45 waiting to be sent to Europe. They had been recruited in great numbers by Roosevelt's administration but they were kept in separate units with only white officers at their head. The Blacks though could be promoted to non- commissioned officer positions which was already a great improvement on what they called the first war. Waiting too long in Tynen, Louisiana, some rivalries appear among the Black men, especially since the sergeant of this unit, Sergeant Waters, is using his position and this long wait to get rid of those he does not like as representative of the Black "race" because he considers this second war is going to change the fate of the Blacks in America and those who are just fools, clowns, those who sing to make people happy and entertain them are not and should not be legitimate members of the "race." By using his power to victimize one soldier he considered such a clown, on his own recollection of how a black soldier was mistreated in Café Napoleon in Paris in the first war into playing the black monkey, half nude with a tail attached to his bottom and eating bananas for the fun of the customers, he manages to bring this black soldier here in Tynen to breaking point and committing suicide.One night this very sergeant gets killed when drunk and on his way back to the base. Everyone says it is the Ku Klux Klan. But it is not. Too simple.Washington DC sends a lawyer with the rank of Captain to investigate. He is the first black officer everyone sees, and I should say to emphasize the occasion for the first time. Reaction are tremendous joy among the black soldiers and very dubitative if not hostile reactions from the white officers since the unit works on a de facto segregated basis with the officers' club only hosting white men since all officers are white. But the Captain sent by Washington is black and that is a shock to the local officers, and what's more to have this investigating officer, accompanied by the local captain responsible for security, coming to the club to interrogate two white officers in the billiards room, or pools room if you prefer. We are thus led to the belief that these two officers had something to do with the death of the sergeant. But that's where we are wrong of course. Too simple.I won't tell you who did it but it has to do with judging who is fit to be a "negro" and who is not fit to be one. Sergeant Waters did it first and before anyone and others decided that they had the same right and that Sergeant Waters, as a black man, had to be eliminated from the racial plate as unfit for the future. When we look back at the history of Blacks in the USA after the Civil War and their emancipation (amendments 13 and 14 to the US Constitution), we find out that on both sides of the racial divide, the main question is always who or what type of black man is fit to be a black man in the present situation and for the future. The Ku Klux Klan wanted to control the Blacks at least politically by using frightening violence. But you find out that Booker T. Washington was supporting one type of Black people, though he did not reject the others and just suggested they should get educated his way. Marcus Garvey is very expansive on his vision of what black people should be and how they should behave and he rejects, at times very vociferously, those who do not fit his model. The various black movements, NAACP, Nation of Islam, Black Panther Party, Black Nationalists, etc, all have a clear definition of what Blacks should be and how they should behave, what religion must be their inspiration, what objectives they should have and how they should advocate them and reach them, etc. That's exactly the point here: some then have the tendency to reject those who do not fit their definition, reject them by ostracizing them, victimizing them, hassling them, or even killing them. Who has the right, black or white, to decide who is fit to be a black man or not?The film is a little bit old. This question is today slightly obsolete, but the question can be generalized and taken away from the racial divide. As soon as there is a clear cut divide that creates some antagonism, on both side of the divide they pretend they know who is fit to be on their side or on the other side. On both side of a divide people live with clichés. Even if today the question of gay rights is pretty active along that line, the Case of Ferguson, Missouri, and the killing of unarmed Michael Brown by a police officer who shot at least six bullets shows the racial divide is still not erased in the USA, still on August 9, 2014. That makes the film still valuable, even though I find the end too close to another cliché. That's the element that has aged. But I can't tell how without telling you who is the culprit.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I suppose the big thing for this movie is that most of the actors are black and it seeks to portray conditions in the military during the time of WWII.I, on the other hand, was just looking to watch a good murder mystery.What I got was the equivalent of "In The Heat Of The Night" if it was put on by your local amateur dramatics society.The murder story is nothing startling or new. Somebody is killed, various people are suspected and eventually the guilty person is found. You can do your own guessing, but it doesn't take an Einstein.What put me off is that the acting is not very good. Other than the Sargent I didn't feel that any of the characters offered anything beyond the clichéd characters role they were handed.

Fear, pain and anxiety bottled up in one insurmountable scope detailing the plight of the black political journey in a time where radical thoughts are called on to produce positive change. Great examples of the changing of the times thru the eyes of the aggrieved. What was thought to be socially acceptable by those without vision is instead exploited and exposed as hindrance not glory. The details in this film are on display by brilliant actors. The actions are quite believable where a light is fixed on the quality of authenticity of military conduct buried deep in the south. The entire film is not sad, there are performances by Patti LaBelle and a genuine feel the south. Though loyalty is recognized as the standards of propriety or morality, betrayal is exposed thru the story for the sake of justice.