cacophony Review of Miracle at St. Anna

Miracle at St. Anna (2008)

Maybe not the best war film ever made but still worth watching.

[8/10 · 27 September 2008]

Biggest comment about this movie was that the tone was much darker than I anticipated based on the trailers I saw. However, it was still fascinating and well-done. People talk about it being long but I didn't realize it was almost 3 hours until I walked out and didn't feel like I'd been in the theater that long. I liked that it felt very authentic and was not dumbed-down to please American audiences, referring specifically to that fact that much of the dialogue was in Italian or German. There were a lot of subplots that didn't come together until near the end and that made the film intriguing and sometimes suspenseful. I thought it was interesting how religion seemed to connect strangers on both sides of the conflict. The one major problem was I didn't understand was why the Italian girl slept with Bishop when earlier she seemed really annoyed with him and enamored with Stamps. Moreover, this love triangle seemed to distract from the plot without adding substance. The scene at the soda shop was maybe a little superfluous too and I was expecting Gordon-Levitt to be a larger player. Overall, though, this is a powerful, fascinating film.