Review of Miracle at St. Anna (2008) by Rusty A — 08 Jun 2013

Miracle at St. Anna follows the story of Hector Negron, a mild-mannered postal worker and WWII vet who suddenly goes postal when a customer tries to purchase stamps from him. During the ensuing murder investigation, the police find a valuable Italian bust that has been missing since 1944. This bust becomes a catalyst, the key that opens Hector's painful memories about being caught behind enemy lines, about an Italian boy who could speak with angels, and about payback 40 years in the making.

I've been a Spike Lee fan for a long time, and when I saw the preview for this movie, I was ecstatic. A Spike Lee war flick! The idea was tantalizing. I thought, "Here's a man who's willing to take a chance, to step outside of his comfort box and tell us a unique story, a vision of WWII we've never seen before." Unfortunately, Spike Lee wusses out and delivers us an old message in a shiny new package. How can the director of the topically prescient Do the Right Thing and the monumental Malcolm X make such a crap-laden bomb? I'm still struggling to come to terms with it.

Here's my take. In the past decade, Mr. Lee's made a series of so-so cinematic concoctions; In a desperate attempt to recapture the lightning he once held so firmly in a bottle, he's started borrowing from himself. But he's lost his touch. His unique mixture of explosive emotion underpinned by patient storytelling is gone.

The racial tension that was so deftly balanced in Do the Right Thing is unpleasantly simplified in St. Anna. The epic vision that saturates every frame of Malcolm X has, in this film, been reduced to an unsatisfying series of pretty pictures. The rich characters that inhabit so many of his films are dumbed down, borrowed wholesale, and inserted straight into 1940's Italy. It seems there's no need for historical tweaking. Instead of personalities who favor us with epiphanies, we get stereotypes who expose us to their purposes. And believe me, with Miracle at St. Anna, Spike is aiming for an epiphany.

The result? Pretentious. Histrionic. Episodic. Lame. And deeply disappointing. With a running time of 2 hours and 40 minutes, it feels like 5 hours. You'll feel every excruciating minute.