Miracle at St. Anna

(2008)

Directed by

Spike Lee

Review by Terry Plucknett

Miracle at St. Anna is Spike Lee’s first full length movie since his hit heist movie, Inside Man.  With his newest movie, Lee returns to a subject that might not be what he does best, but definitely what he does most: chronicling the plight of the Black man in America.  This time, he goes back to World War II to tell a story of how African-Americans are mistreated and discriminated against.  Miracle at St. Anna has a complicated, intricate plot that you really don’t care about enough when you should.

Leading up to the release of this film, there was a very public dispute between Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood over the role of Blacks in World War II, and mainly the lack of Blacks in Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima.  The opening scene started the movie off on a terrible note for me as it seemed to be added just so Lee could take a cheap shot at Clint.  The movie starts with the main character, Hector Negron, in the present day (which is the mid-1980’s for the movie) watching John Wayne’s classic war movie The Longest Day.   While watching the film, Negron utters the line, “Pilgrim, we were there too.”  This one line told me two minutes into the movie that it wasn’t going to be as good as I had hoped.

Following this, we see Negron working at a post office quietly doing his job when he pulls a Lugar from his pocket and shoots his customer who looks familiar to him.  In the next ten minutes we see random cameos from John Turturro, John Leguizamo, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt that at the time you think may mean something, but ultimately mean absolutely nothing to the plot or story.  Right after we see all these characters, we are sent back to World War II for all but about ten minutes at the end of the movie.  The extended flashback is to answer the questions why did he kill the man, and why was a priceless Italian sculpture buried in his closet.  The story that follows not only doesn’t focus much on the mysterious circumstances at the start of the story, but rarely even focuses on Hector Negron.

When we get to World War II, we follow a company of Buffalo soldiers, which was an all Black troop.  Most of the dialogue at the start of the movie focuses on their struggles in a society and an army that doesn’t want them, including a propaganda broadcast by the Germans discussing the same concept.  However, by the way their platoon sequences are so sloppily depicted, there is good reason to doubt their competence as soldiers.  One soldier is about to pee his pants before the fighting even starts, and we are supposed to believe that these soldiers have been through battles already.  At this time, most of the company is annihilated after their commander doesn’t trust them to tell him their true position and refuses to fire on the enemy.  Only four make it into German occupied territory, one of which is Negron, who is the character with the least depth out of the four.  While in occupied territory, they meet a mysterious boy and a family of Fascists that help them.

The story does get somewhat complicated.  You do not fully understand everything that is going on until the end.  However, as everything plays out it is extremely predictable.  Nothing unexpected happens from start to finish.  Not only that, but the primary questions that are the foundation of the story are answered by the mid-point of the movie.  One of the questions is answered in the first minute of the war sequence!  After awhile you realize that the movie really has nothing to do with story of a murder in a post office.  The story is all about the war, the four soldiers (of which Negron is the least important), and a boy who survived a massacre at St. Anna, making him the title character.

There are a few bright spots.  The boy, played by Matteo Sciabordi in his first role, was very good in every scene.  He often stole the show.  Another strong performance came from the beautiful Valentina Cervi, who played one of the Italians the soldiers stayed with.  She was absolutely mesmerizing every time she was on the screen.  There were also some powerful moments.  One of these has the four soldiers staring directly into the camera as they examine Nazi propaganda up on the walls of the small Tuscan town they are in.  It is a beautiful shot.  However, these few bright points are few and far between to save the movie.

In the end, the movie fails to come up with anything original.  It is predictable from start to finish, leaving no suspense for the final payoff.  It is the worst Spike Lee effort I have seen.  A bit of advice to Spike: next time you question the way someone makes a movie similar to what you are currently making, make sure your movie is better than his, because this effort makes you now look pretty foolish for even opening your mouth.

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