Miracle at St. Anna

Spike Lee makes one of his worst films with this sorry attempt at a war movie. Four African-American soldiers fighting in Italy help a small boy and lug a statue head around, all the while fulfilling numerous genre clichés. This movie has an awful soundtrack from Terence Blanchard; his work here is unbelievably distracting, appallingly bad stuff. While Lee obviously set out to show the mistreatment of African-American soldiers in World War II, he winds up trafficking in the sort of stereotypes he often bemoans. There’s not an original idea in this picture, and with the exception of one effective, yet preposterous moment in a Southern ice cream shop, all of the scenes fall flat. This is a major misstep by a good director.