Sunday, March 14, 2010
Weather: , °

Spike Lee, Miracle at St. Anna

by Freeman Montaque
10/19/2008

I really wanted to like Spike Lee’s World War II homage to black soldiers. Truly, I did. There seemed to be an interesting story to tell, and we’d get to see the war from a perspective that we rarely do. I even know of some who, while they generally dislike Lee’s films, were blown away by the trailer. Earlier this year, the director had a public scuffle with Clint Eastwood over his failure to include African Americans in either of his 2006 war releases (Flags of Our Fathers, and the superior Letters from Iwo Jima). He confessed that he feared the altercation would cost him an Oscar nomination. Fortunately for him, that’s not the problem. The film’s failure to stand on its own is why Lee won’t see his name on any awards shortlist.

There’s a wealth of things wrong with the picture. Arguably, the most notable is the lack of focus. On the one hand, you have a murder case. Postal worker Hector Negron is arrested after shooting and killing a man in front of a crowd of people. An investigation leads police to his house, where a rare artifact is discovered. This has an impact not only on the U.S. but Italy, where the relic was originally from.

From this we jump back in time to World War II, and the focus shifts from a murder to following four American soldiers trying to make their way across the river: Stamps (Derek Luke), Bishop (Michael Ealy), Train (Omar Benson Miller), and Negron (Laz Alonzo). All men are minorities (Stamps, Bishop and Train are black, Negron is Puerto Rican) who survived a Nazi assault, and it becomes their mission to reach their base and report back to their superiors in due time with a prisoner in tow. We would assume that this, then, would become the centerpiece of the film.

But we delve into another storyline along the way. Train finds a young Italian boy, Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi) trapped in a hut and saves him. He comes to grow attached to the child and, being the devoutly religious person he is, believes the boy has the gift of God, or something like that. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense as to why he thinks what he does, but it gets into his mind and never leaves. And you wish it would, or that he would at least find a less melodramatic way of expressing his amazement. This story drags on for a while, far too long, really, giving the movie a cheese factor that takes time to wash away. Once we manage to get away from this, new characters are introduced (Partisans, as they’re called in the film), and, guess what, we hear their story, too. That’s not to say their background stories are completely irrelevant. But in general, they’re not crucial plot points.

Aside from the disjointed script and some of the acting (Miller in particular is someone you have to take in small doses), other usually solid elements in a Lee picture are lacking here as well. It goes without saying that at 160 minutes and filled with tons of throwaway scenes, the film could have benefited a great deal from a nice editing job. I’m not sure if it’s Lee wanting to incorporate everything he liked about James McBride’s novel, or if he just wanted so much to tell he couldn’t contain himself. Either way, it’s too much for one movie to handle. Maybe an HBO miniseries would have done the trick.

Terence Blanchard’s music score tries to pull at your heartstrings in a big way (particularly in the film’s last shot), and it’s kind of annoying. The composer is especially uncharacteristic when he includes a bumpy, bouncy feel to scenes that are meant to be humorous, bringing to mind underscores you’d expect to hear in an Ugly Betty episode, not a serious Spike Lee film.

The cinematography may be the one consistently good thing about the film. You get the gritty, rough look that has become something of a requirement for war films since Saving Private Ryan. But you also have nicely lit scenes that illuminate the landscape and don’t take place in combat, such as when the Partisans are in the forest, or when the four soldiers and Angelo are traveling on the mountainside.

Miracle at St. Anna isn’t a terrible film, but it could have been so much more. The reason some war movies like Ryan or Platoon or The Thin Red Line stand the test of time is because they not only execute the feel of being in a war zone exceptionally well, but they also have interesting stories to tell. Miraclehad a chance to capitalize on both of these criteria and, while it didn’t miss the mark completely, it missed enough of it to leave you with a sense of disappointment and frustration. If you want to see a war film that brilliantly captures the plight of minorities during World War II, watch the Academy Award-nominated foreign picture Days of Glory. It accomplishes everything Miracle should have in less time and with a clearer focus.