Da 5 Bloods - Come fratelli

Seems Spike Lee has caught the George Lucas disease regarding pruning back an out-of-control bush of a movie. You have a couple of main themes in this very preachy but often action-packed movie about Vietnam War Vets trying to reconcile their pasts and improve their lots in life. But there's like three-movies-in-one here and Spike Lee seems to have fired the editor who should have removed 30 minutes of drag from this often dramatic effort. Interesting but overly long, sentimental in bizarre places, preachy nearly beyond redemption.

Nothing about "Da 5 Bloods" works. Nothing. In fact, it's so arrogant in it's premise and execution that it almost pulls off a sort of B-Movie charm. Not a complement. Here's a bunch of great actors with plenty of scenery to chew up and a script that assumes a certain weight that it can't quite deliver. What's left is a laughably self-serious movie that looks like garbage, is filled with leaden emotions, and betrays a couple of veterans actors slumming for the privilege of working with the ultimate hot/cold writer-director.

When Lee is on, he's one of the best filmmakers of the last fifty years - full of substance and style. But when he's off, you get overheated tripe like "Bloods" - a film that manages to be hilarious when it's supposed to be thinking, and deadly somber when we're supposed to be winking. Memorable only as a great misfire for everyone involved.

Since his first true feature film She's Gotta Have It in 1986, Spike Lee has remained one of the most passionate and hard-working filmmakers in the industry, with each of his projects being born from the mind of an outspoken individual who isn't afraid to tackle issues and subject matters others would do all they could to avoid.

While this passion has made for some outstanding individual results and moments, Lee has also continued to be one of the most eclectic directors when its comes to quality control, with audiences unsure whether they are getting a new masterpiece or a genuine dud, such is the wide ranging variation of his projects.

For every Do the Right Thing, The 25th Hour or BlacKKKlansman there's an Oldboy, Miracle at St. Anna or Red Hook Summer, works of an artist that sometimes loses focus on quality control in his quest to tackle the often controversial material his bringing to life.

One of his most high-profile releases of the last decade, Lee's first feature since the Oscar winning success of BlacKKKlansman is his long time coming Vietnam passion project Da 5 Bloods, a well-cast Netflix production that shines a light on black service man in the Vietnam war, whilst also offering a thrilling treasure hunt plot-line with aging African American veterans returning to the battlefields of the war torn country.

It's an incredibly intriguing set-up and one that allows Lee to explore topical race related scenarios while also operating in one of his biggest cinematic playgrounds yet but this two and a half hour exercise is the type of let-down of a film that is littered throughout Lee's career, as his poor pacing, editing, story developments and intrusively scored effort continually disappoints throughout.

Loaded up with a cast full of talent with Delroy Lindo, The Wire's Clark Peters and Isiah Whitlock Jr, Jean Reno and Black Panther himself Chadwick Boseman all involved, Da 5 Bloods appears on paper to be ripe for the best type of Lee film but with a collection of mostly unlikable characters, long in the tooth scenarios and situations and an abundance of atrocious plot contrivances (hello gold discovery during a toilet break), Lee's exercise has too many flaws to overlook and more often than not feels amateurish, not the work of an Oscar winning writer.

It's not to say the film is bereft of good ideas or moments, there are numerous touching scenes exploring the effect of war on these man, particularly in how they returned to a country that seemed to not value their services or still continued to judge them by their skin color and some of the interplay between the experienced actors makes for both funny and heartfelt viewing but too often than not Lee is hammering his audience over the head with the films topics with all the care of a sledgehammer, instead of refining his product into a polished offering it was so desperately in need of becoming.

Final Say -

A hugely disappointing effort from Lee, Da 5 Bloods may have found its share of critical acclaim but while its themes and subject matter should be commended, as a film; this Netflix release is as unpolished and unfocused as they come.

2 gold bars out of 5

There's a lot of really cool stuff going on in this movie, but the directing and writing gets in the way. Ultimately, the movie tries to link the Viet Nam war and racism, and fails miserably. In trying to fight the two different wars, it loses a lot.

There's a lot of issues with the movie, but they come down to three issues: 1) It needs to decide which movie it's remaking. It basically tries to combine Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Apocalypse Now, and Three Kings and fails at it because of how different the three movies are. 2) The length; this movie could have been told much more effectively in almost half the time. I know it's trying to combine three movies, but that's no excuse for just taking too much time on things. 3) The over-the-top racism. I know this is a weird call, but the movie could have been a lot more effective had it toned down the racism. Also, some of the incidents involved contribute to the length of the movie without really adding anything.

The apparent lack of any military knowledge on the part of Lee (the sheer number of military gaffes, such as salutes and ammunition) as well as the obvious call-backs to movies involved keep throwing watchers out of the movie.

This had the potential to be an incredible movie, especially as the acting is incredible and the cinematography is gorgeous, but it's just too long and too many issues to be even a satisfactory movie.

There are enjoyable aspects to this movie, certainly... but as a whole, it feels disoriented. And I'd place the blame (and the credit) on director Spike Lee's directorial choices.

An aspect of his directorial style I loved was the 4th wall breaking monologues as delivered by actor Delroy Lindo in the final act of the movie... It was a creative choice that I felt added more weight to the character. But then there are other aspects of Lee's style that just doesn't do it for me... And as was in his last feature BlacKkKlansman... he has a tendency to be overbearingly loud about his messaging when in fact he doesn't have to be. The historical contexts added into the movie (as displayed through a collection of images interrupting the flow of the movie) feel unnecessarily preachy in a script that has very little to do with any of it.

Leaving all that aside, there's still a little charm left in the movie, courtesy of the chemistry the lead actors share on screen. And they all do a great job with the material handed to them, although I felt like the script they were working with could have been a little more accommodating to their talents. The script... although follows a very interesting premise, fails to meaningfully add any depth to it all.

Overall, I'm not saying I hated it, but it's a movie that's very difficult to love. I have nothing but respect for Spike Lee as a director, but this just doesn't do it for me.