Review of Miracle at St. Anna (2008) by Jadeintheatl — 24 Sep 2008

What a mish-mash! Way too many subplots. Someone needed to exercise a little control. This is one of those where maybe the studio would have been right to insist on the delivery of a 2 hour cut. Ten minutes in, I'm sitting there thinking, "Will they ever get across this river?" There's an entire elaborate sequence featuring John Leguizamo that I'm still scratching my head wondering why it is there.

There is also the typical lack of subtlety by Spike where every point is front and center without possibility of misinterpretation. Still, I have to applaud his insistence in dwelling on the off-putting nature of the RESULT of violence.

Like the opening credits sequence in Clockers, the violence is anything but glorified. Then as we are often shocked by the suddenness of death by gunshot, he often circles back to show the ugliness of a lifeless corpse that was, just second before, a vital living person.

I've read some blogs decrying the fact that he after the great box office success of Inside Man, it was difficult for Mr. Lee to get financing for this one. Well, I've often thought that the basic problem of School Daze is that he had too much money to play with.

(Why is there a Phyllis Hyman interlude in the middle of the movie?) I think this might have been better if Mr. Lee had had less money. I'm wishing for a "Director's Cut that is about 110 minutes long.