It's Christmas 1983 New York. Postal worker Hector Negron shoots a customer. Police finds the missing Primavera from Santa Trinita, a statute head from a bridge. Reporter Tim Boyle proclaims him the Marble Head Murderer. Flashback to Tuscany 1944. The 92nd Infantry Division Buffalo Soldiers are advancing across a river. The racist Captain Nokes dismisses his own troops' transmission and shells them. Sam Train carries the marble head for good luck. He and Bishop Cummings makes it across the river. They rescue an Italian boy. Later, they are joined by Hector and Aubrey Stamps. The four men and boy reach the town of St. Anna. Meanwhile, Germans are gathering threatening a counter offensive.

The James McBride material may have too many elements and too many twists to be filmed. Somebody else should have adapted it. This needs a lot of simplifying and to get rid some of the clunkier stuff. I hate that the black troops are talking loudly as they try to sneak across an open field. I hate that two black guys find a way to fight over a woman no matter where they are. I hate that nobody throws a grenade in the final battle. The first half is fine but I couldn't understand why they move away from their own lines. The geography needs to be clarified for the audience. Initially, the partisans are as confusing as hell. There are some odd moments. The action is done well but too many times, people jump out into the open to die in the old war action ways. I can't figure out how much of the problems are Spike Lee's fault. The movie looks good. It's the sprawling, complicated script that is mostly to blame.

In New York, the elder employee of the post-office Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) has a rampage and kills a client, shooting him with a Luger. The rookie reporter of the Daily News Tim Boyle (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) follows the detectives that are investigating the case and they find the valuable head of the statue Primavera in his wardrobe. Tim decides to interview the catatonic Hector, and out of the blue, he starts talking about the 92o Division "Buffalo Soldiers" in Tuscan, Italy, in World War II. Hector and three other black soldiers - 2nd Staff Sergeant Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke),Sergeant Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) and the slow Private First Class Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) – cross a river but his company is destroyed by the German soldiers. While trapped in a village, Train rescues the eight year-old boy Angelo Torancelli (Matteo Sciabordi),who survived a massacre in St. Anna village, and become connected to each other. Along the days, the platoon interacts with the villagers and Hector discloses a story of prejudice and betrayal in times of war.

In "Miracle at St. Anna", director Spike Lee uses his traditional flag to disclose the situation of the black American soldiers in Italy, and how they were treated like second rate soldiers. I did not know that they have this type of treatment, and I was surprised why this theme had not been explored yet by other filmmakers. This movie is very engaging, and my only negative remark is the too long running time (160 minutes). My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Milagre em St. Anna" ("Miracle at St. Anna")

I generally liked the movie, but I'm at a loss as to what the miracle at St. Anna actually was. There were some unexplainable moments, like when the electric lights suddenly worked again in the old Italian home, or when the Buffalo Soldiers' radio suddenly began to work again. The closest I could describe as a miracle was when the young boy Angelo (Matteo Sciabordi) was led to safety by the ghost of his dead brother Arturo, but there was no one there to witness it except the dying Staff Sergeant Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke),and it's questionable if he could 'see' Arturo as he drew his last breath. Heck, I even did a search on 'what was the miracle at St. Anna', and came up empty, as the hits merely brought back references to the movie.

Well, I guess a miracle wasn't really the point of the film. Director Spike Lee makes a statement here about black men in World War II, members of the famed 92nd Infantry Divison Buffalo Soldiers, who in many respects were treated a lot better by Italian peasants under siege by the Nazis than by their own countrymen back in America. A mid-story flashback effectively drives that point home, while a racist Captain Nokes (Walton Goggins) flagrantly abuses the four principals in the story when he attempts to extract them from a hostile area.

For this story to even occur though, relies on a wildly impossible statistical coincidence of an Italian Partisan traitor (Sergio Albelli) winding up in New York City almost forty years after the war's end, and attempting to buy stamps at the window of the only surviving member of the four man unit that found themselves lost on the wrong side of the Serchio River in 1944. AND, that stamp seller (Laz Alonso) having an antique German Luger on hand to shoot the buyer with, as if he were waiting for Rodolfo to show up at any minute. Could it happen? If I were a betting man, the odds would be somewhere in the zillion to one category.