A disappointment from a great director

Rating: 3/10 (30 May 2020)

This is the worst Spike Lee joint I've ever seen. I haven't bothered with his pointless "Oldboy" remake, but this one may be his worse either way. The first half of the movie is actually not bad, its pretty entertaining and intriguing. The second half however, goes off the rails and is incredibly unfocused and dare I say cartoonish. The tone of this movie seems to attempt to be comedic at many moments, even though the content is quite serious and should be handled more appropriately. Otherwise, it needed to be a straight up farcical comedy. I belive its inspired by a true story, but Lee obviously took many liberties. I dont even touch on the plot holes and continuity errors. At about the hour and a half mark I was waiting impatiently for this film to end. The soundtrack in this movie is headache inducing and unnecessary, Lee never allows a scene to breathe and moments that should be tense are directed so poorly that there is no tension at all. If Spike Lee hadn't directed this, thered be no way it would have been nominated for best picture. There is some entertainment value in this movie, and the acting from the leads is pretty good, but at over 2 hours long, this movie really isn't worth ones time. I wouldnt recommend this film to anyone, I expected something better from such a great director.