Film Review
Title: Miracle At St. Anna
Studio: Touchstone Pictures Production
Director: Spike Lee
Principle Actors: Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, Matteo Sciabordi, John Leguizamo,   Joseph Gordon Levitt, Valentina Cervi, Pierfrancesco Favino
Rated R
Runtime: 160 min.
Release: September 26, 2008

Reviewed By: Christofer D’Andrea (Vancouver Correspondent - Canada)

Influential filmmaker Spike Lee triumphs again, with his new release Miracle at St. Anna. This epic story of four black American soldiers, serving under the US Army as part of the 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” division, was long overdue.

The film opens with a bang, demanding the audiences attention, in which an elderly war veteran shoots a man in the face from behind the window at his post office job. After cops search the elderly man’s apartment, they find a statue head hidden away in his closet.

Flashback to 1944 Tuscany, Italy.

The “Buffalo Soldier” division is shown making its way through an Italian river, serenaded by a German broadcast over a loud speaker, the message is chock-full of racial equality and promises of food if they were to join the German side, the scene is undeniably ominous yet stunning to watch, as well as the following battle scene, after which, the four main characters are introduced.

Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke), the ranking officer, Hector Negron (Laz Alonso), a Puerto Rican radio control, Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), an ego equal to his sex drive and Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller), a big man with a big heart. When the four lose there way, they stumble across an injured eight year old Italian boy (Matteo Sciabordi), the group makes there way carefully through the mountains and finds a small Italian town, in which they seek refuge. Part of the family taking them in is the beautiful Renata (Valentina Cervi), who becomes a love interest of Aubrey Stamps, only to be stolen by Bishop Cummings.

A group of resistance fighters led by a man they called “The Great Butterfly” (Pierfrancesco Favino), arrive in the town, and have a German soldier as a hostage, this starts to bring together the complete story, we now get introduced to the unknown man shot in the opening scene, the story behind who the eight year old boy is fully explained, and then we get another disturbing taste of Nazi, Germany. In a scene that could only be described as horrific and shocking.

Spike Lee and his phenomenal ability to captivate an audience, time and time again, has shown he is one of the most important directors of our time, he truly grasps our attention with this broadened war story, having never won an Oscar, Miracle at St. Anna could be his ticket, a spiritual and eminently powerful film.