"Miracle at St. Anna" (2008) - Movie Review

“Miracle at St. Anna” a flag bearer by director Spike Lee in properly giving the due credit for the African American soldiers served in the World War – II has everything a war movie should have except the emotion. The promising script and characters with one mainly being the role of big soldier Train (Omar Benson Miller) is a still water in a ferocious river, not serene but dangerously alarming in its territory uninviting the visitors. With a screenplay mechanically executed, it is astonishingly missing its paramount piece of connecting out of the screen to the audience. And this coming from a passionate director Spike Lee dumbfounds us further adding to the placid effect the film leaves on.

It follows four soldiers making it out of a suicide mission of crossing a river opposing the Nazi soldiers into Italy. The story is a flash back comes from Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) an old postman shooting a man in without any question in a regular work day. With immaculate record and a war hero, a journalist (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) rekindles the haunted memory of this war veteran into those days of serving the country which denied the equal rights to him and his fellow soldiers. They are Train, Bishop (Michael Ealy) and their lead Stamps (Derek Luke). Train carries a statute’s head which gives an emotional strength and a hope for the soldier. He happens to save an Italian Boy (Matteo Sciabordi) and they become close forming a bond of strange trust. They get into a village wherein they stay for further orders from the headquarters. There is a female Renata (Valentina Cervi) who happens to speak English and Hector is well versed in Italian giving a communication bridge for both the people.

In the times of segregation and severe ill treatment of African Americans, it is as Spike Lee says is more than a love for the country. It is quite a shame that the war films negated the contributions of these soldiers. This act of going in front for a country which treated them unfairly and cruelly is the pondering plot for the film. Or it should have been that case and we are in for a surprise of that been dealt may be only in one or two scenes. In the entering sequences of the war scenes, the Germans tactically arrange a psychological technique to lure these men to their side (and of course kill them easily). They bring in a lady (Alexandra Maria Lara) to speak over loud speaker propagating and play mind games over them of what is their purpose of being here risking their lives for country which does not respect them.

The war movies have flooded so much in the industry and most of them given so well has automatically took the standard a level above than the usual. Spike Lee of course had a challenge and he is a man very much capable of tackling it. With his zeal and the passion for film making, it would have been just a matter of finding a plot to put these characters for dissecting and carry out the psychoanalysis in a manner no one thought to take. Instead it is cold, dead cold and it has so many characters believing in their roles seriously undergo the pain of getting into it. Unfortunately they become the right characters for different play. We are confused on what the mission out here for these soldiers and what at all these villagers have a plan in staying in the place soon to be gushed with German soldiers.

Derek Luke’s character is supposed to be the conscience of this film and the neutrality face of the plot to provide on the insight of an African American in the midst of a war field with most of the other men doubting whether it is their war to be out there risking their lives. Instead he is this war film’s usual unsung young hero who seems to follow the rules and believe the goodness for the future to only lay out there commanding orders and guarding with stale face. Similarly Michael Ealy’s character is the cynical man wanting to loosen up and be carefree to protect his head and move on staying alive to head back. He instead with an unsuitable womanizer look did not convince me a bit on his character. May be I got so attuned to the role he played in “Sleeper Cell” but that should not keep him the same over the screen.

I loved the score of Terence Blanchard in “25th Hour” and I was pestered by the war drums in “Miracle at St. Anna”. It is as though Spike Lee for his child hood likings towards John Wayne war films (which I have not seen but can imagine a little) requested to use that glory theme to be played consistently for his film. Hence every time it comes along we are taken far away from the tragic morbidity of war to a place of unnecessarily boosted up patriotism. Music elevates an existing powerful scene or theme to something extraordinary to our senses. In this film it externally tries to feed the mood to us and that wakes us every single second reminding the existence of dark theatre encircling us. It happens throughout these 160 minutes of the film and that is one of many drawbacks of “Mircale at St. Anna”.