A Soldier's Story

Plot synopsis:
The time is 1944 during World War II. Vernon Waters (Adolph Caesar), a master sergeant in a company of black soldiers, is very drunk and staggering along a road along Fort Neal, a segregated Army base in Louisiana. Waters' last words amidst his raucous laughter were "They still hate you! They still hate you!" before he is shot to death with a .45 caliber pistol.
When Waters' body is found the next day, Captain Richard Davenport (Howard E. Rollins, Jr.), a black officer from the Judge Advocate General is sent to investigate, against the wishes of commanding officer Colonel Nivins (Trey Wilson). While the general consensus is that he was killed by local members of the Ku Klux Klan, others are doubtful, having heard that Waters' stripes and insignia were still on his uniform and aware that the Klan's typical M.O. is to remove them before lynching their victims.
From the outset, Davenport is faced with obstacles. Colonel Nivins will only give him three days to conduct his investigation. Even Captain Taylor (Dennis Lipscomb), the one white officer in favor of a full investigation, is uncooperative and patronizing, fearing that a black officer will have little success in catching those responsible. While some black soldiers are happy and proud to see one of their own race wearing captain's bars, others are distrustful and evasive.
Davenport learns that Waters' company was officially part of the 221st Chemical Smoke Generator Battalion and while eager to serve their country overseas, when not training they are assigned menial jobs in deference to their white counterparts. However, most are former baseball players from the Negro Leagues and grouped as a unit in order to play ball, with Waters assigned to manage the players. Their success as a team playing against white soldiers gives them a good deal of popularity, with talk of the team playing against the New York Yankees in an exhibition game.
James Wilkie (Art Evans), a fellow sergeant whom Waters recently demoted to private for being drunk on duty, initially portrays Waters as a strict "spit-and-polish" disciplinarian but also a just, good-natured NCO who got on well with the men, especially the jovial and well-liked C.J. Memphis (Larry Riley). But as Davenport probes deeper, he uncovers Waters' true tyrannical nature and his disgust with his fellow black soldiers, particularly those from the rural South.
An interview with Private Peterson (Denzel Washington) revealed how he stood up to Waters when he berated the men after another winning game. In retaliation, the sergeant challenged Peterson to a fight and beat him badly. Davenport then learns through interviews with other soldiers how Waters charged C.J. with the murder of a white MP, after a search conducted by Wilkie turned up a recently discharged pistol under C.J.'s bunk. Confronting him with the evidence, Waters provoked C.J. into striking him, whereupon the weapons charge was dismissed and C.J. was then charged with striking a superior officer.
When C.J.'s best friend Bernard Cobb (David Alan Grier) visits him in jail, C.J. is suffering from intense claustrophobia and tells Cobb of a visit from Sgt. Waters, who admitted freely to C.J. that it was a set-up and that Waters had done it at least five times before to others like him, saying "the Black race can't afford you no more...the day of the Geechee is gone, boy. And you're going with it." When Davenport asked Corporal Cobb what happened to C.J., he is told that the man hanged himself in his cell while awaiting trial. In protest, the platoon threw the last game of the season, while Waters was left profoundly shaken by the suicide. The team was disbanded by Taylor and the players assigned to a smoke generating company.
Davenport then finds out that two white officers coming from a military exercise, Captain Wilcox (Scott Paulin) and Lieutenant Byrd (Wings Hauser), had an altercation with the drunk sergeant a short time before his death. When questioned, both officers admit to physical assault when confronted by Waters on a drunken tirade, but deny killing him, revealing that they had not been issued .45 ammunition for the exercise as it was in short supply and it was reserved for MPs and soldiers on special duty. Though Taylor is convinced that Wilcox and Byrd are lying and is eager to arrest them, Davenport releases them.
While a search has begun for Privates Peterson and Smalls who have both gone AWOL, Davenport questions Wilkie once more, and the demoted private is forced to admit that he planted the gun under C.J.'s bunk on Waters' orders. Though he hid it from everyone, Waters divulged in private to Wilkie his intense hatred of C.J. and others like him whom Waters felt were an unwelcome weight on the Black race. Davenport then asks why Waters didn't go after Peterson since they had the fight, and Wilkie tells him that Waters liked Peterson because he fought back and was planning to promote him. Davenport has Wilkie placed under arrest just as an impromptu celebration has begun outside after learning that the platoon is to be shipped out to join the fight overseas.
Realizing that Peterson and Smalls were on guard duty the night of Waters' murder, and thus had been issued .45 ammunition for their pistols, Davenport interrogates Smalls after he has been found by the MPs and Smalls confesses that it was Peterson who killed Sergeant Waters, as revenge for C.J. When Peterson is captured and brought into the interrogation room, he confesses to the murder, saying "I didn't kill much. Some things need getting rid of."
The film ends with Taylor congratulating Davenport on getting his man and admitting that he will have to get used to Negroes being in charge. Davenport assures Taylor that he'll get used to it. "You can bet your ass on that," he adds, as the platoon marches in preparation for their deployment to the European Theater.

Tags: revenge, murder, flashback

Review:
It is equally puzzling and disturbing and will leave you thinking about it for a long time to come.The story takes place at a military base in the American South during the last full year of the Second World War, in 1944.
The White officers all want to see this matter brought to a swift and tidy conclusion in order to prevent what they see as a potential race riot between the Black soldiers and local Whites around town.Davenport (deftly played by the late Howard E.
Rollins Jr.) questions the enlisted men at the base, and begins to learn that the murdered sergeant(Adolph Ceaser in an Oscar-nominated performance) had no shortage of enemies, White and Black.Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that Waters is a man of great personal pride and dignity, a man who believes that the African-American race has great potential to "take it's rightful place in history" alongside the White race in America.
But his pride is also fueled by a terrible hatred of Black men, mostly Southern men, who he believes are hurting the race by presenting themselves as lower-class bumpkins; the stereotypical shiftless, lazy, ignorant types; the smiling, singing clowns; the "yassah-boss niggers."One soldier, C.J. Memphis, a simple but charming, illiterate, guitar-strumming man, comes to personify these character traits in Waters' eyes.
His best moment occurs in a bar where he stares into a mirror and talks in a dark tone about his unit's heroic efforts in France in the First World War, and how one Black soldier destroyed that sterling image in the minds of many White Frenchmen.....and what Waters did in response.
Director Norman Jewison(In The Heat Of The Night)adaptation of the Puliitzer Prize-winning play(by Charles Fuller) and numerous NAACP awards for best achievement in African-American literature,tells about the ramificiations of racism and loyalty through the prism of blacks in the military,revealed through a mystery set in the 1940's deep South.
Rollins(Ragtime,and from the TV series In The Heat Of The Night)plays a military investigator,Captain Davenport,who is assigned to the murder of a drill instructor,Sergeant Waters,played by Adolph Caesar(The Color Purple),who was in charge of a black platoon during World War II.
A lot of fresh faces gives brilliant performances throughout the film including one from a youthful Denzel Washington,who makes an early appearance as a soldier with a deep grudge against the drill instructor and a deep mistrust of Rollins' investigator.
However his best film is probably "A Soldier's Story", an intense character-study that deals with African-American soldiers in Louisiana during World War II.
Howard Rollins shows the great actor he once was (and makes you saddened by how his later career after "Heat of the Night" turned out) and you cannot beat the who's who of the rest of the cast: Robert Townsend, Denzel, Adolph Caesar...
That's too bad, because they miss out on one of the best ensemble films of the 1980s, not to mention a tough mystery story that navigates deep psychological waters in delivering a message far less rosy and doctrinaire than you might expect.It is World War II, and just outside a Louisiana army base for "colored" troops, a black master sergeant is shot to death on a deserted road.
The expectation is he will ruffle no feathers and work instead at being what the base commander calls "a credit to your race." But Davenport quickly makes clear he isn't anyone's token, even if it means pressing white suspects or investigating the possibility that whites didn't kill Sgt. Waters at all.Today, you see the film and notice Denzel Washington has a major role as one of Sgt. Waters' men.
For him, the black race is held down by a certain type of southern black, "geechies" he calls them, who play to white stereotyping by not speaking correct English and so on.Caesar tackles Sgt. Waters as if his were a Shakespearean role, and in a way it is, Shylock crossed with Richard III, filtered through a multitude of American racial prisms, white on black, black on white, black on black.
Davenport, the no nonsense, stoic black army officer investigating Waters' murder, and Dennis Lipscomb plays Captain Taylor, the late Waters' white commanding officer, who, like Davenport, desperately wants Waters' killers prosecuted.
However, Taylor earnestly tries to persuade Davenport to relinquish the investigation, believing that as a black man, there's no way that Davenport can possibly "get at the truth" behind the killing.But it is Adolph Caesar who commands most of your attention throughout this movie in the role of the sadistic Sgt. Vernon Waters.
The mystery of Sgt. Waters' murder is the focal point of "A Soldier's Story," and, fittingly, Caesar is "the man" of this movie.
Through a series of film flashbacks of Waters, via Davenport's interviews with black soldiers of Waters' platoon and Captain Taylor, we learn that Waters was an intensely embittered, disillusioned black master sergeant who believed that Southern blacks, perpetuating stereotypes of minstrelsy and ignorance, impede the black race from attaining acceptance and respect from white society.
(While hearing him deliver his lines in this movie, and if you're over 45, you can't help but to reminisce about the classic tag line he delivered in TV commercials for the United Negro College Fund way back in the day—"A mind is a terrible thing to waste.") But it is in this role as Sgt. Waters in "A Soldier's Story" that Caesar displays his powerful talent as a dramatic actor, in a role that would eventually become his signature.
Although small in stature, his screen presence is commanding, and at times even chilling, particularly when he vents his animosity and sadism toward the Southern Negroes of his platoon, whom he deprecatingly refers to as "geeches." It is a hatred so intense that as Pvt. Wilke (Water's subordinate) explains to Davenport, "You could just feel it." Caesar would go on to win a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for "Best Supporting Actor" for his portrayal of Sgt. Waters in "A Soldier's Story," a performance that would make him a star overnight.
Unfortunately, he would suffer an untimely death two years after the movie was released, just as he was coming into his own as a Hollywood celebrity.In what was only his second appearance in a Hollywood movie, Denzel Washington delivers a solid performance as "Pvt. Peterson," the outspoken and assertive soldier from Alabama, totally unafraid to challenge Waters' bigotry toward the Southern black soldiers.
However, even though the story is intended to be a "whodunit," you'll most likely gather who murdered Waters before it is revealed at the end of the movie.Nevertheless, "A Soldier's Story" is a truly compelling tale, and the magnificent performances delivered by the cast alone, a cast that would be perceived by many today as "all-star," will have you wanting to watch this movie over and over again..
Rollins) from the North is sent to a Southern base stationed in Louisiana to investigate a killing of an unpopular sergeant (Adolph Caesar) in a racially charged situation in World War II .
There he finds a motley group of soldiers (Art Evans , Denzel Washington , David Alan Grier , William Allen Young , Robert Towsend) and various suspect white officers (Scott Paulin , Wings Hauser) .This intriguing and totally absorbing film features solid acting , suspense , whodunit , mysterious elements , racism , jazz and blues .
Magnificent performances from main cast as Howard Rollins and Adolph Caesar as a hateful sergeant who achieved prize as the best actor given by L.A. Films Critics 84 .
There is a lot of overt racism amongst the white soldiers of the camp and Rollins' character marks a movement away from that crutch.The supporting performances of this film are equally powerful.
Many think it was local Klansmen who didn't like seeing a black man in a position of responsibility, but that theory is quickly rejected and in steps Captain Davenport (played by Howard Rollins) - a black lawyer/officer charged with solving the mystery.
Rollins was good in the role, and the movie paints a complex (and sometimes confusing) picture of Sgt. Waters, giving reasons for both liking and disliking him, and opening up the possibility that virtually everyone he came into contact with might have had some motive for wanting to kill him.
There were in fact race riots during World War II a fact the War Department considers in assigning one of the few black officers in the army, Howard Rollins to go to the post and investigate.The late sergeant played by Adolph Caesar is a controversial man who no one is neutral about.
In fact as Rollins probes a few people tell different stories and contradict themselves, giving different views about what kind of a guy Caesar was in life.The film was directed by Norman Jewison and A Soldier's Story doesn't have one bit of wasted film footage or one bad performance out of his ensemble cast.
Ironically enough Howard Rollins also got to play Virgil Tibbs in the television series adapted from In The Heat Of The Night.Two favorites in the supporting cast are a young Denzel Washington as one of the platoon soldiers and Art Evans as an older guy in the platoon who's been a non-commissioned officer before and is craftily kissing up to the right people to get those stripes back.
Instead, Charles Fuller and Norman Jewison make their point through a thoroughly compelling murder mystery set on a "colored" or rather African-American army base in a southern rural community during the latter part of World War II.
This is not just pure escapism, although much of the story is highly entertaining and thought-provoking, much like Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".The first scene is the murder itself, inflicted upon some kind of army sergeant who happens to be a "mulatto", someone of white and black lineage.
A few weeks later, an African-American army officer, Captain Davenport (Howard Rollins) arrives from Washington DC to investigate the crime, which gets quite a stir as no one in this predominantly white community has ever seen a black commissioned officer before.
The officer begins his investigation by interviewing the many soldiers of the platoon who had been under the leadership of the slain sergeant.We learn that the victim of the story, Sergeant Waters, played by Adolph Caesar in an academy-nominated performance in which he re-prised his role from the stage play, was a hard-driving non-commissioned officer who feels like his men can't quite measure up to his expectations.
Much of the cast, except for Howard Rollins, re-prised their roles from the off-Broadway play including Denzel Washington, the late Adolph Caesar, and the late Larry Riley as C.J. Memphis.
"A Soldier's Story" plays like a 1980s version of "In the Heat of the Night," the 1967 Best Picture winner directed by Norman Jewison, who also directed this film.
Despite being nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, it's not a well known movie, and I hope more people find it.The film's set up is a murder mystery staged in a military barrack during WWII.
But it's so well adapted, directed, and acted that it remains pretty engrossing nonetheless.Adolph Caesar received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing the murdered soldier, and his is a fascinating creation.
Rollins, Jr. as the investigating officer, probably the film's weakest link, and a young Denzel Washington.In addition to Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, playwright Charles Fuller received an Adapted Screenplay nomination.Grade: A.
The 1980's era film captures not only the essence of racial conflict, discrimination and bigotry in the south during Word War II, but also the tension between southern and northern blacks, or country versus urban blacks, with the latter looking down upon the former.The movie offers superb performances by many actors, including the late Adolph Cesar, who also appeared in the Color Purple, and the late Howard Rollins Jr. who has appeared in many movies and TV shows portraying the south in the 20th century.
The story and characters are motivated by life-like emotions and thoughts, so it is honest, meaningful and, not surprisingly, overlooked as one of the finest films to cover the subject of racism.It would be very convenient, and the solution for racism would be very easy, if all the blame for it could be attributed to a specific group of people from a specific area of a country; in this case the opening quote above refers to the whites who lived in and mostly controlled the southern United States during the 1940s.
Adolph Caesar who rightfully received the Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance was fantastic!I think also what really makes this film resonate more strongly is that, as Jewison said in the commentary, being either white or black, many people can truly relate to these characters.
Rollins, Jr.), who is sent to investigate the murder of a black sergeant (Adolph Caesar) in Louisiana near the end of World War II.
The story focuses on racism within the segregated black U.S Army regiment and is told in flashbacks with rich writing and highly complex characters, especially the conflicted and hated sergeant Waters, the defiant Private First Class Peterson, (played by Denzel Washington), and the self-righteous Captain Davenport.
A black army official has been sent in from Washington to investigate the murder.Well directed by Norman Jewison who seemed to focus on murder mysteries as he did so well in the 1967 Oscar winning film "In the Heat of the Night."It first appears obvious that the Ku Klux Klan has done the sergeant.
(Adolph Caesar in a brilliant Oscar nominated performance for best supporting actor.) Later on the attention drifts to two white soldiers, one of whom, had beaten the sergeant up moments before the shots rang out.Howard E.
The sergeant has done this previously in other parts of the country.One black soldier stands up to him and that person is played by Denzel Washington in his first movie.
I suppose the big thing for this movie is that most of the actors are black and it seeks to portray conditions in the military during the time of WWII.I, on the other hand, was just looking to watch a good murder mystery.What I got was the equivalent of "In The Heat Of The Night" if it was put on by your local amateur dramatics society.The murder story is nothing startling or new.
As a World War II army officer, he is sent by his superiors to a base in a racially divided southern town to investigate the murder of a platoon sergeant under mysterious circumstances.
Adolph Caesar's performance as Sgt. Waters(the victim in question), a veteran soldier(who happens to be black)who wreaks with animosity towards his own race is riveting.
This gets in the way of some really fine performances, and in a way waters down the really important points, about the conflict of assimilation and equality for blacks in a military not ready for it, and in a culture (the deep South) completely resistant to it.A young Denzel Washington, and a seasoned Norma Jewison directing, at least make this movie worth watching, but neither rises to their best stuff.
Although it is very predicable,the writter gave a clue when the Sergeant was killed by their own people,it was so clear that spoil the whole story,but the main target of the movie never was sergeant's behavior,but the message to reach the audience about the real facts during World War 2,when black soldiers never were accepted in same places with white soldiers,more they didn't have any recognition from the Army,including medals of honour after risking their lives for homeland....worst making every kind of dirtiest job in the army.....in the bonus has a little doc about that matter,shame for a country which has two kind of people!!Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.
A murder mystery among black soldiers during World War II - in the last years of the segregated military.
Directed by Norman Jewison, A Soldier's Story is a gripping film that tells the story of an African-American captain and lawyer who is sent to the Deep South to investigate the murder of a sergeant.
Racism is the central theme that surrounds the murderous plot.The movie takes place in 1944, on a black army base in Louisiana where the men eagerly wait to be sent to Europe to fight World War II.
Adolph Caesar, who starred as Sergeant Waters, also did a delightful job portraying a hateful man who enjoyed putting black men away who made his race look bad.
With the racism being instigated my the murder victim himself the late Sgt. Waters!Powerhouse movie that has black US Army Captain Davenport, Howard E.
Davenport's mind is who among the black troops on the base murdered him!More then anything else the movie "A Soldier's Story" shows that racism comes in all shapes sizes as well as colors.
No review of Soldier's Story is complete without praise for Adolph Caesar's wonderful Oscar-nominated performance as Sergeant Waters.
Recap: Around the time of the second world war, a black sergeant is murdered on an American Military base in the South.
It does it good, but there are better murder stories out there, and there are better movies about racism too.There are many good actors, Howard Rollins Jr. as Davenport among them,(unfortunately many that has died before their time since), but maybe most notable now is an early role for Denzel Washington.6/10.
The film not only chronicles the murder investigation of a black sergeant but also the racial difficulties within the African American people as well.
Sgt. Vernon Waters by Washington, Captain Davenport(Rollins) quickly realizes he is looked up to by young black soldiers & scoffed at by fellow white officers.
Davenport reveals the two men really murdered Sgt. Waters because "some people need getting rid of." Davenport solves his case, Cpt. Taylor apologizes for his conduct, & the black troops prepare for battle in WW2."A Soldier's Story" is a winner in every way a film can.