The Six Triple Eight

Opening scene: an Army unit LEAVES their covered, fortified position to charge an attacking enemy. In an open field...

As you would imagine, mass casualties happen. Then friendly planes start bombing and and crashing in said field??

That's not even remotely how that would have went down. Countless documentaries, were available but ignored. Sour taste right out the gate. Lost the trust of the audience.

This is what happens when people with no emotional connection to a subject matter are given a project they don't respect beyond the what they can gain from being associated with a project.

There are so many historians that would have gladly told the director it was a terrible way to portray that engagement.

Ignore the reviewers who tell you to ignore negative reviews. Reading a review that's partially negative isn't going to hurt you.

Anyway, the Six Triple Eight follows a black female Army unit charged with sorting millions of undelivered letters and packages in a short time during WWII. The unit is given third class treatment and facilities, and the general in charge of their division attempts to undercut their mission.

Kerry Washington (as the unit's hard-driving captain) and the actors portraying unit member all give strong performances. In contrast, the actors who portray the fat general and his racist white officers act like they're in an old 60s or 70s movie about a Southern sheriff and his redneck deputies. A woman in the unit who apparently is supposed to provide comedy also seems to be based on a stereotype.

Tyler Perry deserves kudos for bringing a compelling and touching story to the screen, but he mucks up the movie with clumsy courtship scenes and a heavy-handed treatment of Army racism. The movie is too long at 129 minutes, mainly because it starts with an unrealistic battle scene followed by a courtship straight out of a BET movie. Like most movies "based on a true story," many parts of this movie have dubious historical accuracy.

This is not a great movie, but it's certainly watchable. And the fact that so many of the previous 141 reviewers say that they had never heard of the 6888 and what they accomplished shows that a movie needed to be made on the subject. So bravo Tyler Perry for doing this.

My one objection is that the movie never spends time telling us how these women managed to get through all that mail in only three months. That was their signal accomplishment, what made them famous, and the movie never tells us.

It does tell us that several other units had been assigned the task previously and failed, so the 6888's achievement certainly merits recognition.

The obvious parallel contrast here is *Hidden Figures*, a downright remarkable movie that does not sell its audience short, but rather takes the time to let us see how those "human calculators" accomplished what they did. It makes us admire their ingenuity and intelligence, as well as their courage and perseverance.

I suspect the women of the 6888 had these qualities as well, but we really never get to see it.

There are books on the subject. I guess I'll have to go out and read one.

It is unfortunate that such an extremely deserved story was told in such a basic manner. I and many people in America and beyond do not know the story of these extremely skilled individuals who helped in winning a war, and for the simple matter of learning even a bit about the 6888, this movie is worth showing and watching.

But as a film, this movie lacks effort, which I have no doubt is due to Netflix. The set never looks lived in, but like a set to play in. The makeup often looks too well done, reminding us this is a movie. Many more qualified people have pointed out the incorrect verbiage and actions of the soldiers involved, which is not excusable in a movie about soldiers. The acting is fairly stilted, but the fualt cannot be placed solely on the actors, but the director and producers involved.

It is truly a dissapointment that a film which ultimately aimed to honor and shed light on such important and often ignored individuals, failed to put in the care they deserved. If you care to learn about the 6888, watch the beginning and the end, and research from there. You'll spend the same amount of time as if you watched the entire movie, but you will actually learn about these heros.

As a veteran and historian, the story of the 6888 Postal Service Battalion is a moving one. This movie is good, but the multitude of mistakes in the movie as well as the overprocessed look of the video grated on me for the entire film.

The overprocessing look is a matter of taste, but the mistakes in military protocol and the battle scene were avoidable. First, the initial battle scene looked like a video game and was blatantly absurd. Second, "attention" and "fall in" are not interchangeable and the proper follow up command after "dress right dress" and "cover" is "ready front", not "ready two". In addition, the use of "eyes right" and "present arms" during the review are incorrect.