Da 5 Bloods - Review Thread

I'm watching it right now, in the first 10 minutes there's a conversation about 'building the wall' and 'President Bone Spurs' that's so, so shoehorned in it's almost funny. Spike Lee is about as subtle as a nail gun to my balls.

Come over and you can WATCH MY WIFE DO IT TO ME!

I'm watching it right now, I've had to take a couple pause breaks but I'm about halfway done.  No joke I thought those exact words more than once, 'he's just getting in his own way.'  This could be an interesting movie and hey there's even room to throw in some history and politics but man Spike Lee just has to keep reminding you that you're watching a Spike Lee movie and it doesn't help at all.

Spike Lee has always been a very interesting filmmaker to me. On one hand, I love Spike Lee. He's a passionate filmmaker who's so knowledgeable about his subjects and is clearly a master of cinema. Not only is he the most prominent black filmmaker ever, he also projects his voice in a variety of unique stylistic ways from double dolly shots, cutting on an almost replay of the previous action in a tighter angle (as far as I know no one else does this, not even Godard), and pushing the camera in on his characters to get up close and personal with them as they bare their soul for the viewer and leaves them no opportunity to look away from the harsh realities being thrown at them. On the other hand though, Lee is also a very frustrating filmmaker at times. His films largely all have fantastic premises but only a handful of them execute them well. Much of his work is often sporadic, never staying on focus with the intriguing elements already present in the narrative and instead electing to throw one torpedo after another into the mix and diluting the effect. I love his energetic filmmaking and how he edits and moves the camera, very akin to the style of Martin Scorsese in many respects, but where he decides to pursue narratively is what often loses me. He's so smart, so talented, that he doesn't know when to trust that what he's got is already great and needs to keep adding to the pot that's already full. Unfortunately, this is the case with his latest film, Da 5 Bloods, which begins as a nice story about a group of black Vietnam War veterans reuniting to bury their friend and unbury lost gold but quickly languishes under a lack of rhythm, direction, and letting the focus sprawl out of control. There's a good movie in Da 5 Bloods, but a good movie is not the one that Lee delivered.

The character dynamics of the aged war veterans who come together for reunion and reconciliation is one we've seen countless times but more often works than doesn't. Here we have Otis (Clarke Peters), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Paul (Delroy Lindo) who the latter of which is the only character of real substance and distinguishable of the group due to his extreme battle with PTSD. Also along for the ride is Paul's son, David (Jonathan Majors), who quite literally just pops up in Vietnam in the first of many bizarre character introductions that Lee throws into the mix here. They've all reassembled in Vietnam, specifically Ho Chi Minh City which looks a lot different from when it was called Saigon from their last trip there during the war. They have two goals: to locate the body of their deceased friend and platoon commander, Stormin' Norman (Chadwick Boseman in a very underutilized role), to bury him in the United States and also to find the gold bars that they left decades ago. This sets things up nicely for a sort of reconciliation story mixed with a fun treasure hunt, but anyone expecting a glorious mashup of Stand By Me with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre will be quickly disappointed.

At over 150 minutes, Da 5 Bloods is a film that moves languidly and often times without purpose. We never get much insight into the characters outside of Paul, who himself is largely just a caricature of extreme PTSD, and for guys that are supposed to be long-time buddies they have no chemistry whatsoever. The acting feels forced and unrehearsed, and this problem is compounded by Lee's odd decisions to have other characters just pop into the story at random, like a French group of people who are there to disarm land mines, while offering very little in return. Lee has always had a knack for letting his characters go into full soliloquies and wear their hearts on their sleeves, which in a masterpiece like Do the Right Thing works exceptionally well but in other works not so much, which is the case with Da 5 Bloods. Paul's constant ranting and absurdly histrionic behavior becomes tiresome when that's all the character offers up. It's clear the points that Lee is making, and they're very good ones, but they're tedious when it's the same point made over and over again. The message of America's ugly history of having black men fight for it in every major war only to treat black men with disdain and inequality as their reward is a message that's very reticent to this day. And yet all of that gets very much lost in the shuffle due to bad secondary plots and rambling, dull scenes stacking up. To be honest with about an hour to go in this movie I was pretty much over it. 

Despite my admiration for him as a filmmaker, one area that is absolutely not Lee's strong suit is how he stages action scenes. Da 5 Bloods is almost comically inept at delivering believable firefights in the Vietnam jungles, and Lee's coverage is largely in wides with little of the fluidity behind the camera he normally displays. This isn't helped by the odd decision to go the route of The Irishman where in the flashback scenes with Stormin' Norman the current, older versions of the characters play their younger versions. In already stale action staging, the camera is also following older actors lumbering around to get behind cover and return fire which works about as well as it sounds. I don't think it would be as big an issue though if Lee brought some inspiration to how he frames these moments. In fact, his direction of the entire film just feels rushed and bland. The coverage of scenes is again mostly in wides where Lee seems to be allowing his actors to just ramble on and try to use improv to spur up this supposed camaraderie between old friends, but instead it's just embarrassingly cliched dialogue and characters waxing poetic about the same topics over and over again. I don't feel it's hyperbole to call this movie a mess, because that's exactly what it is. Da 5 Bloods certainly has its moments, namely in a scene where the Bloods hear about the assassination of Martin Luther King and their angry reactions to the news. Here is an example where Lee is focused and poignant and one of the few moments where Boseman is given an opportunity to flex his acting muscles. But these scenes are few, and the movie just never has a real flow to any of it. Tonal shifts happen regularly, characters pop up with no explanations, and Lee's lack of focus detracts from the timely and stirring theme at the center of the film.

This wouldn't surprise me since Netflix is known for this, but Da 5 Bloods feels like a first draft rushed into production. The pieces are there for an epic film that should've been among Lee's best work, but this film is in bad need of more stringent editing and more imagination. Taking the film by individual scenes, one could find elements to enjoy and want to view the entire film. But watching it in a continuous flow reveals that there is no flow here. A film that's 150 minutes centered on long-time friends presents none of them save one with any memorable distinctions from the other or even has the lighthearted moments of reflecting on what fostered their friendship to make these characters believable. The treasure hunting aspect is short-lived, redundant, and poorly covered. The action scenes are embarrassingly pedantic. The CGI is horrendously cheap. The acting is all over the place. Characters seem unclear of their own motivations. Da 5 Bloods is a perfect example of why Lee can be such a difficult filmmaker to grapple with at times. He has a fantastic film cut down to its fun premise and insightful theme and then proceeds to throw unnecessary ingredients to supplement it to detrimental effect. It's a reflection of Lee's lesser works as a whole, where the premise is so enticing and Lee's immense talent as a filmmaker should seal the deal of the movie being an incredible piece of cinema, but he gets in his own way and attempts to tackle anything and everything pertaining to Vietnam to the point that film has lost its focus entirely and alienated its audience. Da 5 Bloods is a very disappointing film, especially considering it comes on the heels of Lee's strongest work in over a decade with BlacKkKlansman a couple years prior. Netflix allows filmmakers to follow their vision and largely make the movie they want to without intrusion. With Da 5 Bloods, some of that intrusion would've been very helpful.

5/10

Cause once they get into the jungle, you can tell that's the original script that was handed to Spike Lee. Everything around it is what Lee added to it. You're right. Lee could have done a full script re-write but maybe the jungle portion is what Netflix signed up for. 

I just watched Malcolm X for the first time since I was a teenager. It didn't have much to do with the political climate, I just wanted to watch it post-Da 5 Bloods and saw it was on Netflix. Malcolm X is almost 30 years old at this point and it's still a great film that holds up not just because of recent events, it would hold up at any time. If anything my rewatching it makes me like Da 5 Bloods even less. I can see why Spike Lee would have seemed like such a powerful cinematic voice in 1992 but a lot of his subsequent films make it feel like he peaked too soon. He hits here and there but man when he misses he misses big. Anyways, I'm glad I gave Malcolm X another go, it's great.

Okay take it easy.

Time to re-do 1992.

Yeah but now we gotta redo the redo.

Malcolm X is a good movie.

Unforgiven is a great movie.

Malcolm X is stronger in the first half than the second, which is odd because his later life is the more interesting part of the story.

Denzel gives an incredible performance. The script is good but has some weaker moments over its long running time.

Unforgiven is one of the best scripts ever written and in many ways deconstructs the heroic tropes of the genre and does so wonderfully.

They made the right choice in 1992.