The Six Triple Eight

Impressive in both its subject and suggested scope, Perry’s sweeping film reflects how the achievement of these women directly impacted the troops’ morale, despite the adversity they faced from skeptical superior officers.

Grading on the Tyler Perry curve, though, “The Six Triple Eight” respects its noteworthy topic — and its audience — as much as it possibly could.

The drama lands many of the beats of the Greatest Generation genre and its subgenre: Black service members battling on two fronts. But familiarity doesn’t halt it being illuminating and affecting.

From beginning to end, The Six Triple Eight never trusts its audience to actually engage with the material beyond its inspiring surface, evidenced by a lengthy coda featuring title cards that literally restate the film’s plot over archival footage of the 6888th Battalion. Unsung heroes deserve better.

The film is torn between the conflicting instincts of sassy playing to the gallery and sanctified mush.

There are few moments in the film—one that is wearyingly indignant and emotionally inert—that feel genuine.

The Six Triple Eight is about people who received no public recognition for their achievements at the time, but in trying to give them their belated due onscreen, this clunky excuse for a war movie ends up being more about what they endured than about what they accomplished.

Another uplifting slice of true WWII historyStarting with Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks made a long series of WWII history-book movies. This is one of the better ones. The best of the American spirit is again honored in show-not-tell manner. The WHAT HAPPENED is made clear; as well, there is no shying away from the racism, helping younger audiences understand what racism was and how many women endured it with nobility. Written and directed by Tyler Perry; it's heartfelt, non-stereotyped writing and acting, honoring both the will and competency of black women who served in WWII and their individual experiences as WACs. Also starring the wonderful state of Georgia. On the negative side, for younger males in the audience, the plotting is likely to seem just short of sappy. This a common problem with WWII material. For me as a white male, I enjoyed how they brought the emotions of the WACs into the foreground, not to dwell on them; rather, using them to move the story forward. This kind of screenwriting and moviemaking is easy for arm-chair critics to lash out at. Anyone who has tried to write something like this knows the challenges. When the emotions need to be the foreground, you can't please every segment of the audience.

A fairly decent yarn for a couple of hours that manage to make the concept of people sorting mail actually a bit interesting. There is enough emotion and drama to fill the remaining time. The movie has an competent production and I found few things to critique on in terms of the workmanship. The main problem of the movie is that the message is laid on way too thick. There is a lot of speeches about the adversity the characters are facing but since this is already shown by how other characters act; the old saying "show, don't tell" really should have been applied to the script before shooting.

The Six Triple Eight may have been shot like a low-budget Christmas movie, with its message laid on a bit too thick, yet I still found it enjoyable. As someone well-versed in the history of the World Wars, I find it impossible to watch films like this without being deeply moved.

Kerry Washington's great performance is the only reason why I didn't give this a Zero. I couldn't believe they opened with a WWI trench warfare scene in a WWII movie. They didn't have trench warfare in WWII. Tyler Perry movies are done so poorly.

Boring... Skip it. Well, I did have some loud laughs because the dialogue was so cringe and some scenes were just ridiculous.