On S List of Movie Reviews

(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)


A Soldier's Story (1984)

Rate: 10
Viewed: 5/20

SoldierStory
5/20: Based on Charles Fuller's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, A Soldier's Story is one of the most remarkable pictures made with a top-flight black ensemble cast.

Because of Norman Jewison and Howard E. Rollins, Jr., I think of it as the military version of In the Heat of the Night. There are plenty of similarities between these two.

Howard E. Rollins is my all-time favorite in the aforementioned TV sitcom when he took over Sidney Poitier's role with ease. I hadn't seen him in a movie until now. Well, he's terrific, has a powerful presence, and should've done more pictures. The rest of the cast is brilliant which has three up-and-coming black actors: Robert Townsend, David Alan Grier (of In Living Color fame), and the great Denzel Washington.

It's so obvious that Denzel Washington was going to be a megastar, and there are interesting parallelisms between his characters in A Soldier's Story and Glory. Norman Jewison wrote in his autobiography This Terrible Business Has Been Good To Me:

"The camera loved (Washington). He was intelligent, rebellious, totally confident, and spectacularly talented. He was so confident he often thought he knew more than the director, but he watched and learned. He never believed the film was going to work until after he saw it finished. He didn't stop being above it all until he saw the film with an audience and realized it worked."

There's just one actor who blew me away, and it's Adolph Caesar. His performance only comes once in a while. He's unbelievable. As a reward, he was given an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Adolph Caesar had the best lines, played his role to perfection, and stole the show in every single scene. It's not every day that an old man gets to beat Denzel Washington to a pulp. Sadly, the Harlem-born actor died of a heart attack two years afterwards at age 52.

All in all, thanks to the outstanding performances, A Soldier's Story is a powerful military drama that deals with racial discrimination among blacks.