Eye Candy #182 - "Miracle at St. Anna"

Miracle at St. Anna: It really comes as no surprise that the director who takes Clint Eastwood to task for his war films about Iwo Jima and their alleged historical inaccuracies (such as a lack of depictions of Black soldiers), would in turn essentially fabricate his own story to pawn off as vaguely true historical fiction about the accomplishments and contributions of African-American soldiers during WW2. And with the amount of real accomplishments to showcase, it’s disingenuous in the extreme to bypass all that in Lee’s first film following his criticism of Eastwood. Four African-American soldiers from the 92nd Infantry Division are caught behind enemy lines in Tuscany due to the incompetence of their white officers (the white members of the American military are portrayed almost uniformly as inept racists; in fact, the most glowing white portrayal in the whole film is a Nazi captain). They find themselves hiding amidst Italian partisans to avoid the Germans while waiting for reinforcements to come, while engaging in almost every war movie cliché you can think of. The “miracle” referred to in the title only takes place as a flashback and none of the 4 (or any other American soldiers) was actually there, so that‘s misleading. And all the soldiers really accomplish is their complicity in the deaths of dozen of Italian citizens and partisans (way to go!) The film is overlong, anemic, and boring. The script is weak, the characters gross stereotypes (one of the first line from the African-American soldiers is a desire to eat “ham and ho-cakes”. I almost expected the “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock” speech from “Malcolm X” to reappear). The best actors in the film? The Italians. Woodchuck sez, “This film wishes it was ‘Saving Private Ryan‘.”