The Reel Review
The U.S. military’s first all-Black women’s battalion of WWII, the 6888th, endured horrific racism and misogyny, poor living conditions and constant threat of Nazi German aerial attack as they heroically successfully sorted a ten-month logjam of mail between soldiers and their loved ones. Kerry Washington and Ebony Obsidian (If Beale Street Could Talk) star in this historical drama from co-writer/director Tyler Perry.
Kudos to Perry for bringing this important and inspiring story to the public eye. The 6888th battalion’s contribution to boosting troop morale was pretty incredible. But despite Perry’s great intentions, The Six Triple Eight is amateurishly written and directed – filled with ridiculously corny dialogue, clunky pacing, capital A acting from a frequently shouting Washington, embarrassingly bad CGI and unconvincing, cheap looking set design. Sam Waterston, Susan Sarandon and Oprah Winfrey have cameos as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune.
Despite the film’s shortcomings, it is the inspiring story itself that elevates the production in the third act, when the focus shifts to the relationships among the women soldiers sorting the mail. The film’s climax is a real tearjerker, as is the tribute to the actual Black women soldiers of the 6888th battalion in the closing credits. Great inspiring story, not so great production.
REEL FACTS
• Tyler Perry rushed the production of The Six Triple Eight so that he would have time to show the film to 100-year-old Lena Derriecott Bell King, the last surviving member of the 6888th shortly before her death in January 2024. Perry travelled to her Las Vegas home and showed her the film on his iPad. “We sat and watched, and she was saluting the iPad and right back in the moment,” recalls Perry. “After, she cried and said, ‘Thank you for letting the world know that Black women contributed.’ ”
• Kerry Washington says the “over my dead body” scene actually happened in real life.
• Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta is the site of the former Fort McPherson, where the women of the 6888th Battalion did their basic training.
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