Bamboozled

The only time there should be bookends is if they are being used on a book shelf or if it is a Simon and Garfunkel record. They are rarely useful in films. They are usually just there to manipulate the audience into some over-sentimental connection to the main story. Which is true with Miracle At Saint Anna's. Not even close to all of the film's problems, but the bookends pounds all of the film's problems into the ground. Basically playing like Tom Hanks' greatest hits. Hokey tacked on ending to sob about your fellow soldiers dying (Saving Private Ryan), a miracle that can bring people back to life (The Green Mile), and bad aging makeup (Forrest Gump). If Spike Lee wants to make an all-black World War II movie, fine. If he wants to "correct John Wayne movies", fine. If he wants to publicly start feuds with Clint Eastwood, fine. If he wants to do magical realism poorly, fine. What we don't need is the final scene, we already get that the kid walked away from death. At least the very first scene works as a good set piece. But after that we get Joseph Gordon Levitt doing a "golly, gee" performance and more nonsense that is just there to setup the ending. Why is acting in bookends always so poor? Why do all epics feel the need to use this lazy plot device? Do producers/directors/whoever feel that we need them to emotionally connect to the material? I can just see the pitch meeting now. "We can't have an event that happened 50 to 100 years ago without bookends because the audience wasn't alive then and won't care about what's happening." Guess what, I wasn't alive in the 18th Century either and can enjoy period pieces just fine.