Problem picture, concerned less with interracial discord than intraracial, though some of both. The setting-up of the problem is intriguing. Fort Neal, Louisiana, 1944. The tough black sergeant (and baseball coach) of a segregated army platoon culled from the Negro Leagues has been murdered. A black captain, the first black officer to be seen in those parts, is sent down from Washington D.C. (or in other words, from a more advanced civilization) to investigate, and is received with an eloquent collection of gapes and glares and double-takes. The working-out of the problem, however, becomes a bit of a grind. The action, if that's the word, soon settles down to a series of Q.-and-A. interviews (the script by Charles Fuller grew, but not much, out of his own stage play), and these give way to flashbacks to open the action up: some musical numbers, a baseball game, some fistfights, and the bit-by-bit revelation of the unfascinating facts of the case. They also acquaint us, more than we may need, with the murder victim, a strong character strongly portrayed by Adolph Caesar: a fearless bantam cock with the raspiest voice since Lionel Stander and with a mind toward whipping his whole race, not just his immediate platoon, into shape. With Howard E. Rollins, Jr.; directed by Norman Jewison. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
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