"Miracle at St. Anna"

With my son returning from 14 1/2 months in Iraq last month, I fell behind in my reading and viewing. Now, I'm hustling to catch up, but I'll never get to everything. Since it takes much less time to watch a DVD than read a book, I imagine that the DVD inventory will fare better. Even so, I'm afraid that several titles--"Body of Lies," the Ridley Scott CIA thriller starring Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio and the Clint Eastwood/Angelina Jolie collaboration "Changeling," among them--will have to be postponed indefinitely.

I was able to rescue Spike Lee's World War II drama, "Miracle at St. Anna," from the "Purgatory Pile." As a former historian and a student of war films, I especially wanted to see how Lee would handle a story based on World War II's all-black 92nd Infantry Division.

The Italian Front, where the 92nd Division fought, is largely the forgotten front of the European war. But, some of the war's bitterest fighting took place there in some of the worst conditions, and some of the most unique units fought there: the 92nd Division; the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a Japanese-American outfit; and the 10th Mountain Division--all three experimental units that distinguished themselves.

Unfortunately, Lee's effort doesn't measure up to his subject.
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"Miracle at St. Anna," DVD-2009 ($29.99, Touchstone/Disney) Also available in Blu-ray.

Director Spike Lee ("Inside Man") should leave the war movies to others and stick with the edgy urban dramas he does best.

I can imagine any number of excellent films drawn from the war-time service of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division.

Unfortunately, "Miracle at St. Anna" is none of them.

The 92nd Infantry is historical. Lee's story is beyond fiction. It's fanciful.

The story begins in 1984 in New York City when a postal clerk, Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) inexplicably pulls out a Lugar and guns down a customer who had asked for a stamp. Who knew? Turns out this isn't just another case of going postal. No, it's a framing devise for a mystery that has its roots in Italy in 1944.

Back then, Negron was a member of the 92nd Infantry fighting its way up the Italian peninsula. Ordered to cross a river by a racist officer, the unit is ambushed by entrenched Germans, and four GI's—Staff Sergeant Aubrey Banks (Derek Luke), Sergeant Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), Negron, and PFC Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller)—are stranded behind enemy lines.

After Train rescues an enigmatic young Italian boy, Angelo (Matteo Sciabord), the quartet holds up in a small Italian village where they encounter friendly villagers—-including a very sexy Renata (Valentina Cerri)--clash with local partisans, and fight among themselves.

This isn't a conventional war drama. The combat action is just another framing devise. And while Lee is keen to dramatize the injustice faced by African-American soldiers, even that gets lost in the myriad subplots.

Lee's good intentions—to expose a broader audience to the story of the 92nd Infantry—aren't enough to save this particular "joint" from tepid action, stereotypical characters, and a muddled plot. It's enough to make a reviewer wonder what Lee's been smoking.