This mess of a film was good for the first ten of its excruciatingly long 160-minute running time. Then it went downhill fast. And rather than redeem itself with the second half of its modern-day bookend, it just grew more preposterous, more preachy, more loud, and worst of all, more disjointed. It's like ten films in one, none of which is related to any of the other nine. Comedy? History lesson? Romance? Film about honor? Is it about a long-held grudge? American Imperialism? 1940s lunch counter politics? I have no idea. But none of these different ideas are close to being clearly depicted on the screen. To say this film is disappointing is far too weak an analysis of its failures.
I need to preface a couple of things. I am a loyal and rabid fan of Spike Lee. Malcolm X was an almost completely successful sweeping epic that captured 40 years of American history. Do The Right Thing expertly captured New York City race relations in 1989. His documentaries, 4 Little Girls and When The Levees Broke are proof that he can master the non-fiction realm as well. I didn't mind School Daze or She's Gotta Have It. Inside Man showed that he could do big budget as well as small. Crooklyn didn't work for me so much. But Jungle Fever and its portrayal of both taboo love and Sam Jackson and Halle Berry as crackheads was pretty spectacular.
So I come from a position of wanting Lee to succeed, even when he plays outside his comfort zone, in this case by trying to construct a film in three languages, with modern and period elements, and bombastic war movie special effects. You want to give him props for trying. But then it gets worse and worse.
A gray-haired black man is watching a John Wayne WWII film on his television and says to no one in particular, "We fought for this country, too." That's how the film starts and it is typical Spike Lee. It's almost like you have to go into this film never having read, heard, or seen any depictions of the African American experience in the 20th century. Of course black men fought in World War II (and every other war afterward), but would a man watching a late-night movie alone actually talk back to the screen? When he listens to old Benny Goodman records, does he say, "We made music, too". Yes, I understand that portrayals of the brave black fighting men of the war are few and far between, but he starts the film by treating the audience as idiots.
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