DVD Reviews

Miracle at St. Anna – Blu-ray Review

By Jeff Swindoll Feb 18, 2009, 15:49 GMT

From award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee comes Miracle At St. Anna, the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd Buffalo Soldier division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during WWII. They experience the tragedy and triumph of war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an ...more

Spike Lee and Clint Eastwood got into a war of words over the exclusion of black soldiers in Eastwood’s current WWII films.

In terms of film quality I’ll have to give the upper hand to Eastwood as Lee’s effort is far too long. It does feature some elements that I did like, but there’s a lull and extraneous MacGuffins that bring things down a notch.

In 1983, Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) is nearing retirement at his job at the post office. One day a man approaches his station, he recognizes the man, Negron pulls out his WWII luger, and blows the man away.

Detective Ricci (John Turturro) is wrapping up his investigation at the post office when fledgling reporter Tim Boyle (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) arrives in need of a story. He got lost and has gotten to the scene of the crime long after all the other reporters are gone. He knows that he’ll be shoved back into writing obituaries if he doesn’t get a story for his boss. Ricci feels sorry for Boyle so he lets him go along with the detectives sent to search Negron’s apartment.

The detectives find the ancient head of a statue in a Macy’s bag in the back of Negron’s closet. They take it to an antiquities expert who is flabbergasted to discover that it’s the long lost head of “Spring” from the Florentine Ponte Santa Trinita and has been missing since WWII and well worth over 4 million dollars. Boyle smells a story and visits Negron in jail, but the only thing the old man says is that he knows who the “Sleeping Man” is.

We then flashback to 1944 when Corporal Negron and his fellow soldiers staff sergeant Stamps (Derek Luke), sergeant Cummings (Michael Ealy), and private Train (Omar Benson Miller) are caught across enemy lines. The massive, naive Train carries the head of the statue around his belt in a net because he thinks it brings him luck and makes him invisible to the Nazis.

Train also comes across a young boy named Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi) who has been wounded. The gentle giant Train (who the boy calls a chocolate giant) thinks the boy has the gift of second sight and brings him along with them. The soldiers hole up in a small Italian village with Renata (Valentina Cervi) and her father Ludovico (Omero Antonutti) as the entire area is surrounded by Nazi troops.

Miracle at St. Anna is a fine war film, but it’s also one that might need a bit of trimming. It has elements that I like. I always like it when a film begins in a different time (1983 in this case) and then a mystery leads us back into the past. This one is like that, but the mystery is more of a MacGuffin (or trick to get the viewer’s attention and drive the plot) that really isn’t much of a mystery and really isn’t addressed too much.

To make it even trickier we’re given a double MacGuffin since one of them is the statue’s head and the other is the identity of the “sleeping man.” Neither one of them comes to a satisfactory conclusion and it seems more of a writer’s trick than anything.

The film does seem like a vanity film from Spike Lee. I’m not saying that because of any of the plot elements, since it does cover black soldiers in WWII, but because of some of the famous faces that pop up in minor roles.

I mention John Turturro in the plot write up, he basically performs a cameo and then disappears. One I don’t talk about up there is John Leguizamo who turns up to act as a catalyst (a triple MacGuffin?) to advance more of the plot and then also disappears. It seemed like Spike called up a bunch of his pals to get bit parts.

I can deal with that though and that really didn’t affect my enjoyment of the picture. What did affect it was that they get to the village and the film falls into “nothing really happens for a long time” mode. I guess there’s some plot bits that are told during this time, but it seemed to stall out the film for me.

You start off with a battle scene that annoys and frustrate you because the soldier’s foolish cracker commander bombs his own men since a black man couldn’t know his own position. Nevermind that this fool has put himself a safe distance from the battle and doesn’t know what the hell is going on.

When they get to the village and a short nap then it’s wrapped up with a crackerjack battle in the village streets that makes it worth the wait. I’d say who am I to judge Spike’s decisions here, but that’s part of the job is telling what I thought of the film. Call me a cracker, but in the battle of the war films, I’m going to have to give the advantage to Eastwood or Band of Brothers.

The Miracle of St. Anna is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.35:1). The special features are what makes the disc rate higher since they’re some very interesting inclusions here and all in high def.

The 17 minute “Deeds not Words” is a roundtable discussion with Lee, screenwriter James McBride, and African American WWII vets. The 26 minute “Buffalo Soldier Experience” recounts what it was like to be a black soldier in WWII. There are also 20 minutes of deleted scenes.

In a quadruple MacGuffin, the Miracle at St. Anna really isn’t about the St. Anna massacre but more about the experience of being a black soldier during the Second World War It’s a bit heavy handed in all of its plot machinations, but does feature some good action (that you have to wait for) and fine performances.