Miracle at St. Anna, I admit, is a great idea for a movie. It deserves to be made again, by somebody completely different or maybe from Spike Lee again, just with a clearer focus on the story and better judgment on the merits of some scenes. It also needs better technical expertise. Spike Lee has obviously never filmed a war movie before. The battle scenes themselves are, I admit once again, great ideas. The first one deals with the Buffalo soldiers of WWII. They are of the few black men who fought in the war. They are crossing a river to fight the Germans, who have set up a loudspeaker manned by Axis Sally. She is a smooth talking Kraut who gently reminds the men that they are fighting for a country that hates them. To make matters worse, the soldiers are led by a racist commander who makes several bad decisions. The battle is not nearly as good as it should be. The camera shows no strategy, its pretty unclear where the soldiers are or what they're end goal is. At this point we don't know who the characters are. No one has been introduced.
September is the heartbreak month of movies. It is where all the misguided attempts of proven directors are stored away in hopes nobody sees them. For three weeks straight I have been let down by the likes of Spike Lee, The Coen Brothers, and Woody Allen. Those are tough pills to swallow. I look forward to October and perhaps the first great movies of the fall season.
Back to this film: I hope that someday it is remade. There is a great movie here, it is simply buried under bad acting and confusing meandering scenes. The mystery that bookends the movie is unnecessary. The racial commentary seems forced. A love story is completely one-sided and smacks of jungle fever when the Italian woman jumps in the sac with the American soldier so quickly. I don't know, maybe I missed something there.
There are two characters that for half of the movie are completely perplexing. One is this little Italian kid that talks to an imaginary friend and the big soldier, with a pint sized brain, that saves his life. When they speak its like dumb talking to dumber. The kid repeatedly calls the big guy 'The Chocolate Giant.' In fact, there are many allusions by the Eye-talians that this man is the 'largest negro you've ever seen.' I don't know, I know its supposed to be funny, but I was brought up not to laugh at that sort of thing.
Then there's the revisionist history. There's this one scene where the black soldiers are refused service at an ice cream shop that is serving German POWs. They are threatened with violence if they don't leave. I have no trouble with that. History says that sort of shit happened. What I didn't approve of is when the soldiers came back with loaded guns and basically held up whitey at gunpoint. In the movie they get away with it scot free. I honestly don't believe that would have happened. In reality they would have been lynched the same night. The scene played less as truth but as some sort of cinematic revenge on Whitey exacted by Spike Lee. The emotion behind the scene is understandable but it does not belong in what I assume is a serious film. It should have been left in the deleted scenes on the DVD with a commentary track with Spike Lee saying "Yeah I shot this and I liked it a lot, but at the end, it was a bit out there, you know."
So why isn't this a bad review, what with all my criticism so far. Well, because the story saves itself from Lee's worst efforts. Two thirds of the way through the story we finally figure out why the kid is talking to an imaginary friend. I won't give it away, suffice to say the kid has seen something terrible and is in a state of shock. There the story ratchets up a notch and we are drawn into the story. The troop of four is stuck behind enemy lines and surrounded. There is a last battle with the Nazis, a couple double-crosses, and the tender conclusion to the kid's story. To save these scenes from going completely to waste, this movie needs to be made again.
ps. I actually still don't know what the miracle was or why the guy at the beginning would say that he's the only one who still knows. I figure, what's the big mystery.? Did I miss something? Why would this operation be kept under wraps. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that the story is deficient because there isn't a mystery. In fact, I would say it is better if the whole mystery thing was dropped and the movie was told in a more straightforward, less meandering way.
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