He should have used the term ableist [1] instead of racist, true. Then again, I'm sure you understood what he meant even if he did not use the correct -ist/-phobe/-privilege term of the moment. Also, his question - did this movie get lauded because of being a good movie or because its cast is made up out of people from a certain identity group - is not that far-fetched.

[1] The spell checker in Firefox recognises ableist as a valid word where it would not have done so only a few years back. This is not language evolution, it is revolutionary language.