Miracle at St. Anna (2008)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Spike Lee

Writers (WGA):

James McBride (screenplay)
James McBride (novel)

Release Date:

26 September 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Thriller | War

Tagline:

World War II has its heroes and its miracles.

Plot:

Set in 1944 Italy, the story of four black American soldiers who get trapped in a Tuscan village during WWII.

Plot Keywords:

Village | Italian | Partisan | Italy | Traitor

Awards:

9 nominations

Cast

Derek Luke	...	2nd Staff Sergeant Aubrey Stamps
Michael Ealy	...	Sergeant Bishop Cummings
Laz Alonso	...	Corporal Hector Negron (Young / Old)
Omar Benson Miller	...	Private First Class Sam Train
Pierfrancesco Favino	...	Peppi 'The Great Butterfly' Grotta
Valentina Cervi	...	Renata
Matteo Sciabordi	...	Angelo Torancelli (The Boy)
John Turturro	...	Detective Antonio 'Tony' Ricci
Joseph Gordon-Levitt	...	Tim Boyle
John Leguizamo	...	Enrico
Kerry Washington	...	Zana Wilder
D.B. Sweeney	...	Colonel Driscoll
Robert John Burke	...	General Ned Almond
Omari Hardwick	...	Platoon Commander Huggs
Omero Antonutti	...	Ludovico

Also Known As:

Miracolo a Sant'Anna (Italy)
Untitled Spike Lee WWII Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for strong war violence, language and some sexual content/nudity.

Runtime:

160 min

Country:

USA | Italy

Language:

English | German | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #44568) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Singapore:M18 | Finland:K-15 | Canada:18A | Brazil:16 | Japan:R-15

Filming Locations:

Gioviano, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

Company:

40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks

Trivia:

Wesley Snipes was originally cast in the film, but was forced to drop out due to pending tax-evasion charges.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Before arriving at General Almond's headquarters, the caption reads "92nd Infantry Division Regimental Headquarters." This is clearly the Division Headquarters as General Almond is the division commander of the 92nd Infantry division and wears the two stars of a major general.

Quotes:

Livingston: There's no control in life. Wherever you go, wherever you hide, there's risk.

Movie Connections:

References Inside Man (2006)

Soundtrack:

Le Vigne/Marina

Great Story, But Execution Could Have Been Better

Let me begin by saying that this movie was okay. But it could have been way better.

The story itself is great and kept me interested until the end, but it's execution could have been much better. Throughout the movie, some of the acting ranged from good to bad to downright lame. Jon Turturro's cameo as a detective was extremely disappointing, for instance. The acting picks up when the flashback begins, but every so often it rockets down.

The battle scenes were, for lack of a better word, comical. They were over the top and stereotypical of any other war movie, complete with bodies being flung from explosions in an exaggerated fashion and people sobbing over amputated rubber limbs.

The characters were all over the place on the sympathy scale. Stamps and Trey (or is it Train?) elicit plenty of sympathy, whereas Bishop and whatever the girl's name was only brought out anger from me.

The worst part of the movie is the editing, though. Some of the battle scenes are choppy, and there are entire cuts to different scenes for split seconds that we could have done without (they serve no purpose whatsoever).

My biggest problem was the stereotypical racism of the white characters in the movie. The only American white people in the movie are shown as black-hating jerks who's ignorance leads them to destruction.

Overall, the movie was good. Not amazing, not great, definitely not a masterpiece, but it wasn't terrible or bad or crappy. It was a great story, but it could have been executed much better.

6.5 Stars.