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Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna on DVD
by Larson Hill
 Say what you will about Spike Lee but the world needs filmmakers like him. Although Lee has danced in and out of mainstream Hollywood with some of his past projects, it's Spike's unapologetic desire to expose a variety of social and racial issues through historical storytelling that's often struck a nerve with both moviegoers and the press. With Miracle at St. Anna, Spike Lee introduces the world to a little known World War II story about the Buffalo Soldiers, an all-black Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, who try to save the life of a boy but get trapped behind Nazi lines in an Italian village. And despite the horrors of war that Lee exposes in the adaptation of the James McBride novel, with the organic, upfront message that black soldiers experienced the same bloodbath as their white counterparts, it's the relationship between a Buffalo Soldier and a young Italian boy that not only transcends race but sends a powerful message about humanity.
In what feels very much like Spike Lee's answer to Saving Private Ryan, with nods to many great war movies and a similar structure to how James Cameron told Titanic (at times too deep), Miracle at St. Anna also exposes more of Spike Lee, the man. And no matter how you feel about the movie when the credits roll, you have to give Lee a lot of credit for tackling such a complex contrast between the beauty of humanity and the evil that man is capable of perpetrating. The movie begins in the early '80s with the question - Why does elderly lead character Hector Negron, a postal worker, suddenly pull out a gun at work and kill a guy? The answer is up to reporter Tim Boyle (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who sits down to talk to Negron after police discover an odd relic inside his home. From here we go back in time to WWII Italy in 1944.
 When we get into WWII and a riveting battle that traps the Buffalo Soldiers behind enemy lines, the horrors of war are warmly offset by the relationship between Buffalo Soldier, Private Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) and the young war-shocked Angelo Torancelli (Matteo Sciabordi), as the Buffalo Soldiers find themselves separated in Tuscany. It's a relationship that reveals the intricate layers of two people caught in a larger than life situation as they face their own mortality in a setting that otherwise would have never brought them together. And like war itself, we see the good and the possibilities of what could be if only conflict didn't bring them together but we're also reminded of the brutality of human nature that exposes the pointlessness of war and the cruelty of man. I mean, forget any issues of black, white, red or yellow, we all feel the same pain and emotion at times of conflict and we all bleed the same color.
Although Miracle at St. Anna requires a nearly three-hour emotional investment that will likely leave some people with war fatigue, especially those who can't handle too many flashbacks, the strength of the film is a result of its cast. Much like how the many great young up-and-coming actors of Band of Brothers helped to give the series a sense of innocent realism, Lee's casting of recognizable-but-not-too-famous names, plus actors we don't know, works in the same regard. It's an ensemble in which no actor overshadows the other because of their fame or abilities. What Miracle at St. Anna does accomplish is to showcase the talents of stars like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Early, and Derek Luke but also put fantastic actors like Omar Benson Miller, Laz Alonso, Pierfrancesco Favino, Valentina Cervi, and the young Matteo Sciabordi on the world movie map.
 However, for as much as I loved about Miracle at St. Anna and its underlying layers, Lee's execution and ambition undercuts the effectiveness of the film and power of the story. Although I'm on the side of most filmmakers when it comes to running time - if you feel the need to tell a story in three hours, so be it - but there are consequences. No matter how emotionally rewarding or grippingly epic a story is these days, nearly three hours of war and drama is a hard sell, especially to a growing population afflicted with ADD. As far as length, Miracle at St. Anna is what it is, which doesn't need to be a long drawn out battle within itself.
The film hits several high notes, especially the final battle sequence and the understanding of the "miracle", but its fractured journey leads you too far astray at times in its time structure. Also, Spike Lee and his movies have always had a gritty sense of hip but his style of cinematic cool sometimes feels a bit too awkward for such all-too-real subject matter. For a DVD that doesn't contain special features, Miracle at St. Anna is a journey back in time that's as often just as fractured as the battle plans of war but is still worth watching for its story value and Lee's ambition to tell a story that not only transcends race but sends a powerful message about humanity.
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