Kerry Washington “chews scenery” all the way through The Six Triple Eight (2024) as an army major who has to whip her recruits into shape so that they can deliver superior performance on an impossible assignment given to them out of disregard and contempt. And it works. It actually works.
The movie is by Tyler “Medea” Perry, the actor, director, playwright, and producer, who has built himself a media empire in Atlanta, Georgia. Though I’ve known about him for a long time, and have probably seen him in at least one film (Don’t Look Up), this is the first film of his (writer, director, and producer) that I’ve seen. It is, among other things, an “uplift the race” movie, as it is about black women assigned an impossible task by white men who don’t believe that black people can do anything worthwhile. It’s also a World War II movie, because it’s set in Europe near the end of the war. But it’s not a “blood and guts come hell or high water” brutal action film.
No, it’s about morale and spirit. In two senses. It seems that for some reason, there’s no mail flowing back and forth between the troops and their friends and families back home. The mail hasn’t been delivered for two freakin’ years. Those people are dispirited. It seems that the military that launched a successful assault on Normandy in the middle of 1944 can’t figure out how to deliver the mail.
That’s one thing. And then we have the 3888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, who were assigned to a rat-infested unheated school in Birmingham, England. What a dump.
But they made it work, the women of the 3888th, Black women. This isn’t the time or place to rehash the who what when and wheres of the story. See it for yourself. It’ll raise your morale too.
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