Great message, poor execution. We needed this at this time.

Rating: 4/10 (14 June 2020)

This movie had a lot of potential. Both in the story to tell about black men's experience in Vietnam. And also the systemic racism in their home country of America.
The movie fails pretty badly.
There are a lot of great poetic juxtapositions of the story against historical events and statements by historical people like Rev.Dr Martin Luther King jr, Angela Davis etc. But there is an in ability of the editor (or the director leaning over the editors shoulder) to cut a scene when it has told it's story. Many scenes run minutes past when they should have concluded. One scene towards the end runs about 10 minutes past when it should have wrapped up and gotten out of the way!
There are also a few problems with the plot that are hard to ignore. Character motivations and behavior just do not make sense.
Also, I have to say this is not the first movie by Spike Lee where the non-black characters are reduced to cartoonish stereotypes. It's odd because elsehwhere in the film Spike goes to pains to show the famous quote by Muhammad Ali about Vietnam, and have his characters repeat words to the same effect multiple times. That VIetnamese and Black people have more in common than not.
Yet the Vietnamese characters in this movie are at the least mildy stereotyped. At the worst, played for cheap laughs.
Then there is the ending. I will not spoil the ending except to say, be prepared. The movie ends about 10 times in a row. Just stay in your seat until the credits roll. It will trick you!
I think Spike operated under the mistaken assumption that this being a straight to Netflix release meant he did not have to worry about running length. In a normal release they may worry that a running length longer than normal reduces the number of possible screenings a day. So it will be harder to recoup investment.
Of course watching at home on Netflix, we are all conditioned to expect 45-50 minutes of entertainment. Stretches longer than that have us longing for the pint in the icebox.
Basically I find it hard to imagine this is the same director of She's Gotta have it, Do the Right Thing, and Clockers.
Those movies had pacing, character development and plot. This movie doesn't.