St. Anna needs a miracle to keep audience happy

‘ ‘ ‘ Can Spike Lee make a movie centered on both racism and World War II? ‘ ‘ ‘ The answer… ‘ ‘ ‘ Can Spike Lee make a movie centered on both racism and World War II? ‘ ‘ ‘ The answer is no, but not for lack of trying. ‘ ‘ ‘ Lee’s new movie, ‘Miracle at St. Anna,’ had the ingredients to be a masterpiece, with an interesting plot and an all-star cast to back it. Maybe the topic of WWII and the issue of racism were just too colossal for Lee to combine the two into one picture. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘Miracle at St. Anna’ lacked interesting characters and confused viewers with contrived use of flashbacks. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘Miracle at St. Anna’ is about four soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division ‘mdash; a completely black unit ‘mdash; who get separated from the group. ‘ ‘ ‘ The four take shelter in a small Tuscan town where, at first, they are ostracized for their race. But they soon find that it isn’t their race that they’re hated for. They discover later in the film that they are unwelcome because they are Americans intruding on fascism. ‘ ‘ ‘ Actors Michael Ealy (‘2 Fast 2 Furious’), Laz Alonso (‘Jarhead’), Omar Benson Miller (‘8 Mile’ and ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin”) and Derek Luke play the soldiers stuck in the Italian village. ‘ ‘ ‘ Their characters were too stereotypical to bring any real individuality to the film. Ealy played a womanizer and aggressive badass while Miller’s role was at the opposite end of the spectrum, a fat, caring man with a true heart. Alonso and Luke’s characters were so similar, that they began to blur together. ‘ ‘ ‘ Like every other Spike Lee movie, there was a role that seemed to be written specifically for Denzel Washington. Why didn’t Denzel join the cast? Probably because the character dies tragically in the first battle scene. ‘ ‘ ‘ The Italian characters were no more interesting. They were so superficial and contrived that the two main Italian guerillas ‘helping’ the Americans could easily be classified as good Italian and bad Italian. ‘ ‘ ‘ The simplicity isn’t just limited to the freedom fighters. The townspeople are spiteful of the Americans, but slowly warm up to them through dinners, religious get-togethers and general conversation. ‘ ‘ ‘ This was as far as the Italians went. They either hate the Americans’ guts or love them so much that they didn’t know how they survived without them. ‘ ‘ ‘ Worse than boring, one-dimensional Italian characters were the minute-and-a-half cameos by John Turturro and John Leguizamo. These roles had no purpose whatsoever. They appeared to be added only to create two more names that Touchstone could throw on the movie poster. ‘ ‘ ‘ By far the most confusing and unnecessary aspect of ‘Miracle’ was its use of flashbacks. The film starts in the present day, with one of the veterans shooting an Italian man in a New York post office with a German pistol. Then the veteran’s flashback starts the film. ‘ ‘ ‘ After the bulk of the movie is finished, for some reason Spike Lee decided to take the movie back to present time ‘mdash; and with the exhausted use of deus ex machina, gives a very cheesy and fake sense of closure. ‘ ‘ ‘ Going back to the present is ultimately futile in that it detracts from the movie, making everything that was so impacting seem silly when these acts of God solve humongous present-day plot holes. ‘ ‘ ‘ One thing ‘Miracle at St. Anna’ didn’t lack were scenes of carnage that brought to mind films like ‘Schindler’s List’ and ‘Hotel Rwanda.’ The images of a savage Nazi slaughter of an innocent Italian village and a bayonet rammed into an infant’s head by a Nazi illicit some intense emotions. ‘ ‘ ‘ But intense emotions alone can’t cut it. The dull characters and confusing time sequences sucked all the magic out of ‘Miracle at St. Anna.’