THE STORY: I'm going to have to get around to posting a mission statement of sorts one day. You see, The Inferno judges movies mostly by the entertainment value. If a movie really sucks the green weenies I'll let you know, but a movie can still be bad and provide entertainment. I try to shy away from movies that I actually think are pretty good; they don't deserve to face the flaming depths of the Inferno. Like this one. When I do review a movie that's good I do so hoping that others will go and watch it. I personally love this movie.

Captain Davenport, US Army is assigned to investigate a murder at Fort Neal, Louisiana. Its 1944. The main factors in this murder are that the victim was Master Sergeant Waters, a black man and that Captain Davenport, himself is black. Folks, this is 1944...in the deep south. The army wasn't integrated then...hell, nothing was. So there are problems already.

Davenport believes that two white officers killed Waters. He's convinced that the commanding officers of the black troops, Colonel Nivens and Captain Taylor are protecting them. Watching this movie I can't really blame him for this assumption. Black people are getting it in the neck in this time period, in this location. The colored troops believe that the Klan killed Waters, only the modus operandi for the Klan is to remove the stripes and insignia from murdered black soldiers...something that didn't happen to Waters.

Despite efforts to stamp out his investigation, Davenport discovers a lot about Sergeant Waters. Waters was a very disturbed man....he disliked other black people and appointed himself as a kind of judge. Any black soldier that he thought was 'setting a bad example' for black people he went after. This led Waters to engineer an incident which led to the suicide of a soldier. Oh, and wasn't something Waters didn't want to happen. He took great glee when the soldier, a big guy, named CJ hung himself. Davenport also finds the two white officers are innocent of the murder and the real killers are within the platoon of black soldiers.

Man, I'd love to go into a little more detail but I don't want to spoil this for anyone who hasn't seen it. This movie was great. I liked it because of the message it sends behind the drama....that racism is both ways. Davenport is certain that the white soldiers killed Waters; Captain Taylor is sympathetic and racist at the same time...but Taylor doesn't even recognize his own racism; Nivens is a redneck through and through, but in the end you could argue that his position was for the good of the army even though he clearly has little respect for blacks. Davenport is those men in reverse...he wants the guilty to be found and punished but is almost completely unwilling to believe that another black man might have killed Waters. And Waters himself is a portrait of a man who is truly lost. He despises the way blacks are treated and goes out of his way to ruin or destroy those he believes are giving colored folks a bad name.

I'm fascinated by this movie for several reasons. First of all, when I grew up black people were still treated poorly in my hometown. Almost daily carloads of yokels would drive through our neighborhood yelling the "N" word and throwing garbage at us. Unless you've been there, you'll never really know how hurtful that is to a kid. Heck, a van of rednecks once pushed me of of the road while I was on my bike, poured water on me and then dumped a bag of garbage on me. I was 12. 12! You really have to be racist to do that to a kid...really. Secondly, this movie shows that black people can be racist too. Yes, that's painful to admit for a black man, but hey, we're all human. We all have to rise above it. (God, racism is so petty, I can't stand it....from anyone.) Third, its hard for me to imagine a time when non-whites were treated so shabbily. Yeah, I had times like that when I was a kid in the 70's but I can't imagine what my parents went through in the 40's and 50's. The back of the bus? FUNK DAT!

This movie stars a lot of people that are fairly well known. Denzel Washington is Private Peterson. Howard Rollins plays Captain Davenport. Rollins was Virgil Tibbs in the TV show In the Heat of the Night. I heard he was on drugs, but I'm not really clear on what happened. Wings Hauser makes an appearance as one of the white officers that are accused of killing sergeant Waters. Patty Labelle is the club owner, "Big Mary" and Robert Townsend is Corporal Ellis. The late Adolph Caesar was Master Sergeant Waters.

Best Lines: "They still hate you!"- Sergeant water's last words.

"We were in France in the 1st war...we had won decorations. But the white boys had told all them French gals that we had tails; and they found this ignorant colored soldier...Paid him to tie a tail to his ass and run around half naked making monkey sounds. Put him on this big round table in the Cafe Napoleon...put a reed in his hand, a crown on his head, a blanket on his shoulders and made him eat bananas in front of all of them frenchies....oh, the white boys danced that night. Passed out leaflets with that boys picture on it...called him 'Moonshine' King of the Monkeys; and when we slit his throat you know that fool asked us what he had done wrong?!"- Sergeant Waters reveals his anger and dark side to Wilkie.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) How the hell do the guilty parties get away with killing Waters and not being caught. Without giving away too many clues the same reason the white officers were cleared would have fingered the murderers. Ballistics. If they fired a weapon on duty the armorer or whoever would have had to account to the rounds missing when the weapons were turned in.

2.) Amazingly, CJ, who can't speak English clearly can sing extremely well. Its kind of funny, because if you watch his speaking parts you'll think he has little command over the English language, but when he sings he sounds clear as bell and with the added bonus of stereo!

3.) Wanna know where your government dollars went in the forties? Good googley-goo, they paid these black soldiers to play baseball? There was a war going on for Christ's sake! If there's any thing I can say to make you realize how wasteful racism is, that's it. These guys actually wanted to go to the front lines but the army pays them to play ball? If the army paid me to play tiddley winks I'd gladly do it, but they'd rather I bust my ass and actually do something constructive.

NUDITY AND SEX:  none

HUH?:  Wilkie is a really stupid guy. He has little to gain by setting CJ up.

What was the deal with the little dance Davenport does outside of Colonel Niven's house?

Peterson reminds me of my cousin, Keith, so much I swear they must be the same guy.

THE FINAL JUDGEMENT: My late mother loved this movie when it first came out. So even if I didn't like it I'd have to give it at least three devils for her. But I did like it and the Inferno's demons liked it as well. If you haven't seen it, go rent it. You'll thank the Inferno for it.