Good concept, Good acting, Weird script, Bad pacing

Rating: 4/10 (19 June 2020)

When I saw this movie I was intrigued by the concept of a group of vets returning to Vietnam to reclaim gold that they had hidden away during the war. Knowing Spike I figured it was gonna be a gung-ho, balls to the wall exciting ride, with a lot of dope lessons & heavy black influence. It was some of those things.. sometimes.
The movie starts with a history lesson on the events of the late 60's to early 70's. The war, the civil rights movement, Watergate, etc., & mixes 'The Bloods' into the end of the montage. It introduces them by reuniting them in 'Nam & talking about their plan, then jumps into the war flashbacks. The same actors are playing them in the flashbacks.. still old, which I thought was cool. The action was very campy & stylized, &the 16mm filming enhances it, but after about 30 minutes, the plot dilutes itself in a very weird way. This movie didn't need to be 2 1/2 hours long.
The acting was terrible in some scenes, & amazing in others. Some of the actors would deliver an awful line in one scene, then an oscar worthy performance in the next. Delroy Lindo stole the show, he has always been one of my favorite actors, but a lot of the character motivations are too in-your-face & I understand if some of it was hard to act realistically.
Before this review gets too long, I should just say that it had some good messages sometimes, especially considering the events going on here in 2020. Spike was just too on the nose in some ways, & tried to implement too many ideas into this film, which made it very complicated in other ways. Both my friends I was watching it with went to bed before it was over. I wanted to like it so badly. I held out for some amazing finale, but it just never delivered in a way that was meaningful. I'm not sure if I could or couldn't recommend at least giving it a watch.
Also, there is no way Netflix didn't pay all of the critics to give this movie 8-9+ star reviews. I can see how people might like it, but seeing people saying it's oscar worthy is laughable. I love the actors, love the idea, & I love Spike, but he just didn't hit it out of the park on this one.
Last but not least, black lives matter, & shout out Marvin Gaye.