Spike Lee is a fantastic filmmaker and that’s the only reason you are never technically bored while watching Miracle at St. Anna, but a lack of boredom doesn’t make up for a story gone awry. The story of African American involvement in World War II is a story that needs to be told, but not in some roundabout way that makes you think, “Spike, it’s great you want to bring us a story about black soldiers in World War II, but did it have to be a fake one?”
Miracle at St. Anna is based on a novel by James McBride who was commissioned by Lee to pen the script for the film. The film centers on four soldiers from the 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division, a predominately all-black army division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II. Lee gets into the story using what appears to be a random act of violence as a bank employee, who apparently keeps a German luger in a drawer at his bank window, shoots a man. We learn the shooter’s name is Hector Negron, a Puerto Rican soldier once part of the 92nd and along with being a murderer he also has, in his apartment, the head of an Italian statue worth millions. How did it get there and why did Hector shoot this man? That’s the million dollar question… or is it? And if it is, should it be?
The audience is quickly thrown into the battlefield as one regimen finds themselves at a river crossing as a sexy female voice is heard over German loudspeakers telling the black soldiers how white America doesn’t care for them and they will find women and comfort on the German lines. Boom. Boom. Boom. Bullets and mortars fly and we are left with our four primary soldiers. Communications officer Hector Negron (Laz Alonso), the level headed yet uptight Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke), the gentle giant Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) and the ass of the bunch is Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy). The four befriend a young Italian boy on the run and end up in a village where the rest of the story plays out.
From what I had heard about Miracle at St. Anna, it was to be Lee’s attempt to inform people of the African American involvement in World War II, highlighting their contribution despite a large amount of racism and ignorance. One line in the film delivered by Stamps lends well to this idea when he says he feels freer in Italy than he does in the country he is fighting for. However, he still believes in change, something Cummings doesn’t even want to hear about as he feels oppressed and is only looking out for #1. You can’t really blame the feelings of either man, but the attitude Cummings has brings nothing to the story but negativity. Sure, it’s an attempt to be fair and show there are two sides. Not all black people believed things would get better and felt if things were going to stay the same they were going to do the most with it they could. It’s a good idea and it would have worked better had the story been true, but when you are going to fictionalize a true story it seems senseless and over-dramatized.
Honestly, I didn’t know Miracle at St. Anna wasn’t a true story until afterward. However, while I was watching I began to think, “There is no way this is true.” The film hit on every note you would expect as well as everything you have ever seen in a war picture showing the atrocities of World War II combined with the negative treatment and heroism of the black (and Puerto Rican) soldiers.
The film runs 2 hours and 40 minutes long and I can point to several portions of the film that could have been cut, primarily the whole Hector Negron mystery which bookends the film in a way that is so melodramatic and over the top it doesn’t even fit into the story told in the guts of the picture. Negativity considered, there are a few highlights deserving of attention. One scene in particular re-enacts the massacre at St. Anna and it is phenomenally effective. The true story of the massacre tells of 560 people being shot and bludgeoned to death, including women and children. Lee cuts that down to about 50 or so villagers (still including women and children) and had he chosen to go with reality it probably would have been unwatchable. He holds nothing back, and I really believe had he nixed the mystery angle and shown this scene at the beginning of the film I may be giving you a completely different opinion.
In terms of performances, the principals are all decent. Alonso stands out slightly and I always enjoy Benson Miller, but Ealy’s character is so silly it seems his only purpose in the film was to walk around eyeing women and leaving the room going, “Mmmmhmmm,” with a crooked sex-me-up eye. Whatever he was going for, it didn’t work. Finally, casting Walton Goggins as anyone other than Shane on “The Shield” is a bad choice. He just isn’t a good actor and his white racist Captain Nokes character comes off as laughable. He’s an asshole, yeah, we get it, but couldn’t you have found someone that could act to play the role?
Overall, Miracle at St. Anna is a mess of miscommunicated messages that still leaves room for a proper film based on the “Buffalo Soldiers” to be told, preferably a true one. It’s a shame because Spike Lee generates attention and I felt if anyone could get this story to the screen effectively it would have been him. Instead we learn nothing new and there is very little to come out of the story that the audience can take with them. Unless I am mistaken the only facts of the matter are that there was a 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division, there was racism and there was a massacre at St. Anna. Other than that, it’s all a bunch of mumbo jumbo that never actually happened, and taking the reality out of the story makes it something of a complete waste of time.
D+
