Spike Lee's War~Politico~Gold Hunt

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2020)

Vietnam war vets with PTSD plus post-war search for gold mashed with high level of politics.
We have seen war movies. We have seen soldiers looking for stuffs in war. This is the same with high themes & politics and comdey sprinkled around.
Gorgeous cinematography of Vietnam, the greenary was bursting out of my screen. The cast gets the job done but after hearing Spike Lee tried to get Samuel L Jackson, Washington Sr. & Jr. and Giancarlo Esposito, the movie could have uped its value much more for me. Delroy Lindo has already gotten oscar nom.
Yes the movie is a bit slow and drags in some cases but it works to set up the characters and flesh out their past. Due to it being slow it actually feels like I am there with da Bloods, going to bar, seeing new & improved Vietman. But this flow becomes inconsistent, for example when the first mine-boom bursted, everything started to rush and we were hit with multiple incidents and they happen very quickly. If the movie slowed down in those areas our emotions for those characters could have stayed much longer.
But man was it thrilling, that 1 2 3 scene was griping as hell. Well crafted. Speaking about crafting, the use of screen ratio for storytelling was a great idea.
Now politics. I love that Spike didn't tell an one sided story, even had dialogues multiple times of how Americans themsleves talk about their one-sided history. It didn't shy away from showing Vietnam's people anger & post-war situation.
Money/Gold destroys people, greed broke this group. Paul wasn't just some Maga hat wearing 1 note villain, his movitations, his guilt, anger, flaws were magnificently explored and explained. Why he choose this side and hated his son, hated site of Vietnamese were boldly explored.
Him getting mercy from Norm in his own mind was beautiful character moment.
Spike didn't shy away from gore & violence (I actually heard there was ganna be high blood-shed from critics and truth is, I was a bit disappointed for less amount of blood)
The movie taging everything with Black History - slavery, civil rights & BLM were connected perfectly and the theme of Black People, still getting oppressed, hits you hard multiple times. I know people with other agendas will have other things to say but I keep my agendas away from ART.
I was disappointed with the cast not getting de-aged for war scenes but at the end when they showed an old picture with de-aged characters it just shows the war scenes played in their head with Norm still being young and fit, and them being themselves.
Norm & Paul are Martin & Malcom and their views in opposite spectram where challenged and social commentary was explored perfectly.
Some small nitpicks, most comedy didn't land for me and it dragged a few times, didn't care about some characters. But I respect the hell out of Spike for making this film.