Miracle at St. Anna (2008)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

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:

WWII | Italy | Village | Theft | Shot In The Shoulder

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

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #44568) | Canada:18A (British Columbia) | Singapore:M18 | Finland:K-15 | Canada:18A (Ontario) | Brazil:16 | Japan:R-15

Filming Locations:

Gioviano, Lucca, Tuscany, Italy

Company:

40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks

Trivia:

Naomi Campbell was originally cast in the film, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.

Goofs:

Factual errors: When the story is told about the ice slops in Louisiana and the soldiers have live ammo with them, soldiers were never allowed to have live rounds off base, much less their weapons.

Quotes:

Private First Class Sam Train: God don't like ugly...
Sergeant Bishop Cummings: Well, he don't seem to like pretty a whole helluva lot either.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "The O'Reilly Factor: (2008-06-27)" (2008)

Soundtrack:

The Longest Day

Miracle at St. Anna fails to meet my lofty expectations

I attended the world premier of Miracle at St. Anna at Toronto International Film Festival. Unfortunately as much as I respect Spike Lee as a filmmaker I thought the movie was a bit dull and kind of boring. At 166 minutes I found that the movie was overlong and dragged too much. I became restless after awhile as the movie progressed. The story didn't seem to go anywhere, was uninteresting and I had trouble connecting with it. It was hard to follow at times as well. The movie jumped all over the place at several points to different years in the history of the characters. I found this to be jarring and irritating. Spike Lee should have taken more time to edit his film because each of the scenes went longer than they should have. It's not the worst movie I have ever seen although it could have been better. My expectations were high. I came away somewhat disappointed.