Narrative Review Miracle at St. Anna Directed by: Spike Lee Cast: Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller Time: 2 hours and 40 mins Rating: R
It’s nearly impossible to make a great film. Making a really good film is a different story. The main difference is great films rarely stray too far from the story being told. While they do contain series of subplots, each tangent is an essential addition to the film. They provide a nice layering that pads the story into a visual novel.
Spike Lee is an excellent cinematic storyteller. This is a fact you cannot dispute. That being said, even great storytellers don’t always make great films. Miracle at St. Anna is an ambitious rehashing of James McBride’s novel about the 92nd Infantry Division’s involvement in the Italian campaign during the closing years of World War II. Where other directors may have pointed fingers, and gotten preachy by over generalizing the large-scale segregation of America’s African American troops of the era, Lee simply tells a specified story of four soldier’s whose lives came together amidst these vexing conditions.
We begin in the present day (okay, 1983), following a mild-mannered man whose job as a post-office employee funds a relatively trouble-free life in New York City. He’s quiet, loves John Wayne-starring war films, and God. It’s when he blows a pasty, European man away in cold blood (seemingly unprovoked), the questions flood the audience as quickly as he wielded the gun: Why? Did he know that guy? Is he crazy?
When the police, and a young reporters looking for a story (the always likable James Gordon-Leavitt) search his apartment, they find an old Italian artifact that reveals there may be more of a story here than they initially thought. All of the sudden we’re whisked back to 1944, and the long-winded answer.
On paper, this film had the potential to be truly great. Its director’s brilliance is in his ability to personalize the myth behind stories most would be too afraid to capably retell. The only trouble with St. Annab is, it may have been this lack of fear that drove him off on one too many tangential off shoots. There are simply too many people to care about in this film. Don’t get me wrong, you end up trying to sympathize with each, but this process exhausts your ability to unite their stories into one cohesively successful motion picture.
Just about every issue imaginable is addressed, and addressed well. We feel the deep cut of racism, and the growing awareness of it in the minds of the featured soldiers. Derek Luke and Michael Ealy are a terrific tandem, representing the blindly optimistic (Luke), and stubborn realist (Ealy) regarding the hottest issue in America. They are the respective poster boys for each side of the Race Debate only beginning to simmer below the societal surface America had largely ignored since Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
It’s just a shame that Lee could not stay focused on bringing this dynamic to light. We are cinematically instructed to care about the relationship developed between a young Italian boy, and the group without ever truly understanding why we’re supposed to care. There’s a young, alluring Italian girl and her family. A small group of Italian partisans who provide more war-torn drama. Trust is always an issue. God is always watching, or is he?
Confused? Not sure which story to lend your full attention to? That being said, the running time (20 minutes shy of three hours) is a non-issue. You’re fully engaged throughout, despite being thrown the aforementioned curves the swelling story uses to continually redefine what the film is actually about. This is why Miracle at St. Anna is not a great film. It’s just really good. Final Score: 7/10