Review – Miracle at St. Anna

Normally I don’t like to pick on the film-making skills of a director as gifted as Spike Lee, but I honestly think this picture could have been cut down a bit into a much better production. However, I’d hate to see him lose any of the impact of the story. The main plot concerns a quartet of black soldiers in a small Italian village in 1944. One of the group adopts an injured child, and things just sort of twist and turn from there. Lee’s editing is laconic, which is part of why he takes three hours to tell a two-hour tale. He also makes odd use of the cast, with the main characters played by newcomers and more famous actors putting in only brief appearances. Overall, however, this is a new look at an old war from perspectives previously left largely unexplored. To be sure, it’s a bit of a downer. But for the most part it’s a well-crafted, thought-provoking downer. Worth seeing