Film Review: A Soldier's Story (1984)

Second World War is arguably the shiniest chapter in history of United States. Future superpower with its material and intellectual resources played the crucial part in the victory over unspeakable evil and paved the way for more peaceful, prosperous and better post-war world. Yet, even in those times there were some things going on United States that were hard to reconcile with usually hagiographic treatment by official historians and that would cause major embarrassment for future generations of Americans. One such details represents a major plot point in A Soldier’s Story, 1984 drama directed by Norman Jewison.

The film is based on A Soldier’s Play, Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play Charles Fuller, who also wrote the screenplay. The plot is set in 1944 when US military was still officially segregated on racial lines. A US Army unit, manned by blacked soldiers and NCOs and commanded by white officers, is stationed at base in Louisiana, far from actual war. One night black sergeant Vernon Waters (played by Adolph Caesar) gets killed and Captain Davenport (played by Howard E. Rollins Jr.), a black military lawyer, was sent from Washington D.C. to investigate. Most of the soldiers believe that Waters was killed by local members of Ku Klux Klan who can’t stand black man in any position of authority. This belief was shared by white officers, like the base commander Colonel Nivens (played by Trey Wilson), who are keen to have the incident hushed up in order to prevent escalation of racial violence. Davenport nevertheless continues with his investigation and through the interviews with soldiers new picture of Waters emerges. He appears to have been a proud man and harsh disciplinarian with especially hard spot for soldiers who, in his way, behaved stupidly or clownish and thus lived to white racists’ stereotypes.

Director Norman Jewison is known for films with strong political message of leftist or liberal persuasion. The best and the most successful of them was “Oscar”-awarded 1967 crime thriller In the Heat of the Night, which, like this one, dealt with issues of racism in American Deep South. A Soldier’s Story took interesting approach in tackling racism exclusively from oppressed blacks’ perspective and showing how racism affects them by creating vicious cycle of bigotry, oppression and violence within their own community. That intriguing idea was somewhat compromised with Jewison’s decision to make this film as different from stage play as possible and fill it with some unnecessary scenes depicting baseball game or military manoeuvres. Music by Herbie Hancock is also of varied quality and at times sounds too anachronistic. General impression of A Soldier’s Story is ultimately rescued by excellent cast. Rollins, while much subdued compared with “Oscar”-nominated performance in Ragtime is very good in the role of military professional who wants to find the truth no matter how unpleasant or costly. He is much overshadowed by brilliant Adolph Caesar in the complex role of murder victim who begins as harsh unplesant man only to evoke sympathies at the end Caesar has played the same role in original production, same as young and very intense Denzel Washington in small but pivotal role of Private First Class Peterson. A Soldier’s Story is generally good film, but some of the viewers today might find it depressive because it deals with the issue that was supposed to become irrelevant for America and the rest of the world years and decades ago.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo
Cent profile https://beta.cent.co/@drax
Minds profile https://www.minds.com/drax_rp_nc
Uptrennd profile https://www.uptrennd.com/user/MTYzNA

Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7

Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/26522-a-soldier-s-story
Critic: AA