The Six Triple Eight, la recensione del film Netflix

Emotionally blackmailing, it was once said with a purely negative meaning. But emotional manipulation by manipulating facts in a fictional way is not always deplorable, especially when it is at the service of a good cause. When he moves away from comedies not a transvestite who made his fortune, Tyler Perry reveals his growth as an author and director, but this time the subject he focuses on is really important. In the war movie The Six Triple Eightthe filmmaker exploits a little-known piece of World War II history, that of the 6888 battalion, the only brigade entirely made up of black women sent to Europe, as a monument to fight against racism and discrimination.

To offer the public a sufficiently strong emotional hook, Tyler Perry focuses on the story of Lena Derriecott King, a centenarian auxiliary who passed away at the beginning of 2024, but who we see and hear in moving ending who, just 18 years old, abandoned her family and her home in Pennsylvania to enlist following the death of her boyfriend in the war. Apparently unsuited to the hardships of the front, Lena will struggle through the training and then be sent with her companions to Europe, at the request of Eleanor Roosevelt, to dispose of three years of undelivered mail sending seventeen million letters to the troops and their families for “keep morale high at the front”.

The Six Triple Eight: two opposite protagonists

Tyler Perry’s Lena Derriecott seems like a character from a photo novel. Played by the beautiful Ebony Obsidian, with very long eyelashes and a photomodel’s body, she navigates between love torments and harassment from her classmates for having formed a bond with a young white, Jewish and wealthy student, Abram David (Gregg Sulkin). Their fairy tale turns into a nightmare when the young man’s plane, enlisted “to fight Hitler”is shot down. And this is where the film story takes off: when Lena, who also chooses the army path, meets a group of black girls determined, like her, to enlist.

The counterpart to the character of Ebony Obsidian is the battalion commander, Major Charity Adams, played by a strong-willed Kerry Washington. Lena looks like she came out of an all black version of Little women how much Washington’s character, in comparison, appears modern and far-sighted. Courageous, determined, fully aware of the judgment of othersespecially of men, on her work, Adams manages to be a guide and confidant for her female soldiers, going so far as to challenge the white superior who wants to remove her from the position by replying: “It will have to pass over my body” (episode actually happened, apparently). It is predictable that, around the character of Kerry Washington, Tyler Perry builds the most emotional moments of the film by making them an symbol of black pride.

Too enjoyable to be a war film

Tyler Perry’s intent in The Six Triple Eight is to bring justice to the brave black soldiers that history, and their country, have forgotten. To do this, the director sets up a oscillating narrative structure between Lena’s point of view, which the audience adheres to more easily, and that of Major Adams. This alternation creates a certain indecision in the narrative structureto which one is added patinated style adopted by the director, not very appropriate for a war film. Style that is also reflected on the protagonists. Despite Major Adams’ recommendation to his female soldiers to wear makeup discreetly, no one is anything less than perfect, even in the most dramatic moments or in strenuous training.

In this very dusty war movie, the actual war can barely be glimpsed in a few sequences created with one Artificial and unnatural CGI. The choice made by the director to concentrate the bulk of the story within the headquarters of the 6888 battalion (for budgetary reasons?) has reason to exist. But if the actresses who play the soldiers do their best, letting intriguing and charismatic personalities shine through, the same cannot be said of the stars to whom Tyler Perry decides to entrust some important cameos. A Susan Sarandon with features distorted by makeup as Eleanor Roosevelt, Oprah Winfrey in those of the black civil rights champion Mary McLeod Bethune and Sam Waterston in the role of President Roosevelt they adopt an affected and unnatural register that risks becoming a caricature.

A story that deserves to be told

As for Kerry Washington, her constant presence on stage pushes her to overdo it. His acting is almost always over the topwe see her tremble with anger, we hear her scream more often as she wanders around the headquarters with shining eyes and a broken voice. Without a doubt, a more measured performance would have benefited the credibility of the character, who thus seems programmed to excite on command (and perhaps win some prizes).

But that’s all the film is organized around main scenesbuilt specifically to celebrate the heroism of the female soldiers of the 6888 battalion, a concept that the director repeats endlessly, encouraging its assimilation in the spectators thanks to an “easy” and flowing film, where the dramatic moments are digested thanks to the humorous tone hovering general. Tyler Perry’s packaging is not without flaws, but this time we forgive him because such a beautiful and compelling story deserved to be told and he succeeded in doing so by honoring the true protagonists in an exciting coda.