This is not a Spike Lee joint.

Rating: 1/10 (14 June 2020)

On the heels of his previous film BlackKklansman that came out when it was indeed relevant, Spike Lee tries again, and fails miserably. The movie opens up at a hotel reception in Vietnam and some very bad dialogue that's too on the nose and practically gives the viewer a list of things that are of relevance without ever contributing something meaningful or intriguing the viewer as to why these men are relevant and whats to discover. In the next scene the characters are at a bar, dancing, (or rather just going through a crowd like they know everyone) and then sit at a table here again their discussions are perhaps relevant, but badly executed and without offering anything of interest to even better know and understand the characters, let alone to contribute to the entire film. Their personalities are relegated to their political views which are expressed so forcefully, it would be absurdist if it wasn't just bad writing.
In a short flashback we see whats the point of all this. Some gold and obviously, a dead body, a fallen brother. What throws the movie off its course is mostly the age of the soldiers. They are depicted appropriately as older in our timeline and the same age in the Vietnam timeline. There is no effort to relate them to one another, just put them in both scenes, its going to make it easier, nobody will notice and move on. When movies are so condescending to its viewer it produces a mode that throws you off the story. Coupled with the one character meeting a Vietnamese woman who was a prostitute and now shes a well off lady with a daughter, whose father is the soldier and who never know of his now 30 y.o. child. And two scenes are given to this, which bared so much weight on the character but remained undeveloped (if you're by now capable of calculating the age differences here.
The scenes from Vietnam are shot in the aspect ratio we all know from Vietnam footage and it sort of adds to the atmosphere of another timeline, but the way these scenes are filmed is so poor, its almost laughable. Spike Lee should have known that action sequences are something else. No direction, no orientation, who is who is where is irrelevant. Again, it borders with the absurd, reminiscing about Classical Vietnam movies which depicted whites in the same battle and even poses and dramatic deaths which bare no weight considering what happens.
They find the gold, a symbol of power for one and of freedom for the other. As the story progresses one of these four veterans steps on a mine because he delivers a pointless speech that started from a meaningless argument. He walks backwards as he speaks, the camera anticipates a sudden moment, making us anticipate it and in the anticipation the message is lost and the scene where one of the soldiers is killed by a mine in a horrible fashion remains uneventful. Spike Lee fails continuously as a director of action sequences and he fails in anticipation building as well. Then the son of one of the guys steps on a mine and remains standing not to activate it. Some guys that deactivate mines just happen to be i the same region and they cant help them. Did I mention they work with mines? (turns out they barely have any weight int he story, not as a love interest or a way to propel the plot). They tie a rope around the kid standing on the mine and pull it, and he survives, because they pulled him away before the mine exploded. Did i mention there is no point or explanation as to why the kid is there and what kind of relationship he has with his father, a Vietnam war veteran who later gets killed too.
The movie is on on hand a miserable buddy comedy, trying to paint these men as fun guys. Their political opinions are given, never elaborated on. At no point does the film utilize film as a medium, as Spike Lee has done many times before. At no point does the film leave food for thought. It is a poor execution of a hastily written film. The only reason this movie was made was to be as timely relevant as Blackkklansman, which it would have been if it was not written in a day and made the week after. Someone should have looked at the script.
Its a missed shot because it is so bluntly served its almost insulting to the intelligence of the viewer considering its timeliness. In time the films rating will drop as people re watch it and those who actually disliked it can say so. Spike Lee, do not stop making movies. Let film do the commenting.