spike lee's MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA (2008)

is there another filmmaker working today that we can compare to Spike Lee? In the two-plus decades since She's Gotta Have It rocked black cinema and helped spark independent film as we know it, the lovably loudmouthed iconoclast has followed his muse through every nook and cranny of the film world. he's done music videos for the likes of Michael Jackson and Public Enemy, as well as commercials ("Money it's GOTTA BE THE SHOES!") and short films for anthologies. he's worked extensively in nonfiction, from music, comedy and performance films to serious docs like 2006's thunderously poignant When The Levees Broke. and in the meantime, of course, he has directed sixteen feature films, the majority of which cement his reputation as American cinema's preeminent lecturer on the subject of race. (he even found time to write books about the production of five of his first six films.)

but within this deep filmography and high profile is a dirty, if open, secret: Spike Lee makes kinda lousy films.

this isn't true across the board, of course; Malcolm X, for instance, is the rare biopic that doesn't let cliche undercut its spirit or respect, and Do The Right Thing remains the most penetrating, thoughtful and important film about the American race problem. but more plentiful are the loud misfires and quiet mediocrities, from School Daze to Girl 6 to She Hate Me, and the overrated, overwrought likes of Jungle Fever and The 25th Hour, undone by poor-taste melodrama and misplaced indignation. (hell, give The Original Kings Of Comedy a spin and watch Spike fail awkwardly where no-name Comedy Central technicians consistently succeed.)

so which Spike Lee shows up for his latest effort, the WWII drama Miracle At St. Anna? his most recent work seems to bode well (both When The Levees Broke and his taut, startlingly focused heist flick Inside Man rank among his best films, for very different reasons) and he certainly seemed confident earlier this year when a transparent St. Anna publicity stunt found him locking horns with Clint Eastwood. but the intermittently charming, occasionally boring, overwhelmingly frustrating Miracle At St. Anna sadly begs to differ.

if Spike had it in him to make a great war movie, this was surely the material. Miracle At St. Anna focuses on a group of four so-called "Buffalo Soldiers" (black infantrymen in the pre-integration US military) caught behind enemy lines in Tuscany during the final throes of the war and charged with the care of a young, slightly mysterious Italian boy they encounter along the way. taking refuge in a mountainside village, the soldiers befriend a group of war-weary locals and a small band of antifascist guerrillas, and the boy's "miraculous" story unfolds as the Nazis close in.

whatever potential the story has, though, James McBride's undisciplined, uninspired script (adapted from his novel) cautiously avoids capitalizing on. the pieces are all there, from the twists and turns to the intriguing frame story of a curious murder decades after the story's events, but nearly everything seems an afterthought; he lingers on scenes that do nothing to push the story or its characters forward, and whenever the plot does manage to advance it does so slowly and self-consciously, forcing the idea of an "epic" on a story that doesn't deserve such baggage and imposing thematics without earning them. even worse is the stuff that does need to be there: after more than two hours of interminable slogging, pretty much everything the film seems to be building to is crapped out in an overstuffed, undercooked battle scene masquerading as a third act.

however dismal McBride's work, it's not alone in sabotaging Spike's prestige pic; in fact, efforts seem to have been made across the board. Terence Blanchard's score impresses at first, but hovers heavy and unwelcome over every scene afterward; Barry Alexander Brown's editing steadfastly resists logic and decorum, ruining quiet dramatic scenes and outright butchering the painstakingly-yet-somehow-indifferently shot battle sequences; the oft-superb Matthew Libatique's grainy, bleached cinematography consciously apes Saving Private Ryan without regard for the fact that what's stunning on Norman beaches does a grave disservice to the hills of Tuscany. even the extras get in on the sabotage, flailing with each fatal gunshot like a preteen with a ketchup-packet squib.

in the end, though, the blame can't help but lay with Spike Lee, out of his element from the getgo but terminally self-serious to the final, unintentionally hilarious moments. His shallow epic cribs blatantly from superior filmmakers/would-be nemeses like Spielberg and Eastwood in nearly every regard, save only for the no less wrongheaded ones that make Miracle At St. Anna a Spike Lee Joint in the most traditional sense: Spike squanders his opportunity with the under-represented Buffalo Soldiers to wax heavyhanded about the dilemmas of black men fighting a white man's war, et cetera, et cetera, without any regard for the fact that a filmmaker truly equal to the subject (with, ideally, a competent screenwriter in tow) would recognize all that as painfully obvious, and at the very least steer clear of lengthy, tedious dialogue scenes spelling it all out.

if Spike really wanted to give the Buffalo Soldiers their cinematic due, he would have made a rousing war film in the classic tradition, emphasizing them as the heroes they were; if he really wanted to make a Great Film, he would have focused his and his collaborators' craft and emerged, as we know he can, with something memorable. But in trying to do both, and so much more, he has achieved nothing. you're better than this, Spike...aren't you?

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)