Delayed Reaction: Glory

What I Guessed It Was About: Black soldiers in the American Civil war struggle with opposition from both enemies in the South and the allies in the North.

How I Came Into It: I could not have been any more zeroed in on discovering that this was another lame White Savior movie. It had the plot, the cast, and the setting for it. While I wasn't looking to dislike this, I was definitely prepared to need some "Yeah, but" reasons to explain that I liked it.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) As it turns out, I don't need any qualifiers. This was a good movie and simply that. It has Denzel Washington with an Oscar winning performance, post-Ferris Bueller Matthew Broderick, post-Princess Bride Cary Ewles, Morgan Freeman in the same year as Driving Miss Daisy, and pre-anything Andre Braugher. The story doesn't deify the unit or ignore the importance of it. Things aren't cured with a montage either. There's a bunch of moments overtly intended to be uplifting, but they were earned. The movie looks great too, like they used their budget well, not like they kept throwing money at it.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Matthew Broderrick's parts were never as interesting as the parts with all the training soldiers. I'm not sure whether to put that on him or the role for being a thankless one. A couple moments lean into cliche or feel emotionally manipulative, but never at a level that derailed the movie.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend