Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)

[Philip J. Fry]

Trailer:
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IMDb / wiki / RT / Metacritic

On Netflix

[Skitch]

I'm really looking forward to this.

[Dukefrukem]

Wife and I will be watching tonight. [

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or at least the first half until the bottle is empty....

]

[megladon8]

Sometimes I get the feeling that racism in America is an important topic to Spike Lee.

[Philip J. Fry]

Watched this today and I'm still absorbing it (it has a lot to unpack). Part Treasure of the Sierra Madre (it even includes a MAGA Fred C. Dobbs), part commentary on American Interventionist policy, and part story of the American hypocrisy and oppression towards POC at the time and today, I can say it is one of the best Spike Lee joints. Something I really like is how, at least for a few moments it paints both our black protagonists (and by extension, all POC people drafted to 'Nam) and the Vietnamese as both victims of a country who saw the war as almost as a game: in fact there are several (brief, but still present) scenes depicting the cruelty the Vietnamese suffer by American hands and (perhaps my favorite) several instances in which a VC radio station is more honest to black GI's about how the American people in power sees them.

Fantastic movie.

[Ezee E]

It's Spike Lee for sure.
I've said it before and will say again. Spike's movies tend to be bloated and overlong. There's also something masterful in each of his movies, and Spike's voice always comes through.

Da 5 Bloods is no different. A strong bond between the cast feels true the whole way through.

Great cast. Many have raved on Delroy Lindo, but it was Clarke Peters that stood out to me, although the primary cast bonds very well together.

It's definitely a miss to have the cast playing their 20-year old selves alongside Chadwick Boseman.

[Grouchy]

Yeah, it's Spike Lee. It might be half an hour too long but it sparkles with life and cool scenes. Delroy Lindo has never had a meatier role to show off. There are a few things that really keep it from being great, though.

It's definitely a miss to have the cast playing their 20-year old selves alongside Chadwick Boseman.

This is one of them, a very weird call. I almost think it was a deliberate Irishman joke. They are quick scenes and they have a grainy film quality, but still.

And the other one is more serious and I really have to discuss it in spoilers.

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Why is Lindo's Paul absent from the climax of this film? From a screenplay perspective it makes zero sense. He's arguably the main character and a logical antagonist for the final stretch yet he's unceremoniously shot almost as an afterthought. Instead we get Jean Reno (who's almost a non-character, he could have easily been just a cameo) wearing his MAGA hat. I really think this would be a stronger film if Paul was present in the final shoot-out and was able to complete his character arc.

]

[Peng]

The weekend of its release isn't over yet and I've seen many aspects of the film divisively discussed in so many corners, which feels like the power of a Spike Lee joint in sprawl mode. At first, I fear that mode would spiral out of control during the first half, where the way it clings and clangs through the story and thematic set-ups often fall more on the clunky side than provocative/thought-provoking for me.

But when the jungle trek starts, suddenly there's a more focused throughline in which to hang all of Spike's still sprawling directorial touches on, with the tonal whiplashes and rhetoric tangents stop feeling frustratingly all over-the-place, and coming off as exhilaratingly urgent and layered instead. Not to mention his filmmaking so consistently kick into high gear during this section, leading to many nail-biting sequences and gut-wrenching moments, the latter often from a tremendously raw Delroy Lindo performance. That the second half cohere into engrossing dramatic and thematic statements as Spike Lee intends is due in large part to Lindo's downward spiral of rage, self-hate, and sorrow grounding them all so well. 8/10



As for the two aspects I've seen raised up often, here and somewhere else:

- I'm mixed on the music, which is an interesting choice but feels like it comes from a more somber, Platoon-like war film, and comes off a bit distracting.

- The use of the 5 Bloods' older selves in flashbacks, however, totally work for me after those nicely disorienting initial minutes; these parts are already stylized, and this choice eliminates the potential distancing effect that de-aging/younger recasts might bring up, or have the audience calibrate the matching of characters for every switch to flashbacks. It also intertwines their past and presents more closely and movingly, especially crucial in the case of Lindo's character, whose two big scenes with Chadwick Boseman (one in the tail end of flashbacks, another in the fevered present) would not carry off the immense emotional gut-punches they have if the mix of characters have not been the same on both sides of flashback/present days.

[Peng]

And the other one is more serious and I really have to discuss it in spoilers.

[

Show Spoiler

Why is Lindo's Paul absent from the climax of this film? From a screenplay perspective it makes zero sense. He's arguably the main character and a logical antagonist for the final stretch yet he's unceremoniously shot almost as an afterthought. Instead we get Jean Reno (who's almost a non-character, he could have easily been just a cameo) wearing his MAGA hat. I really think this would be a stronger film if Paul was present in the final shoot-out and was able to complete his character arc.

]

[

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I actually think this an apt, if very sad, endpoint for his character arc. For his PTSD that is fueled more severely by his guilt over accidentally killing Norm, Paul fares worst than any of the 5 Bloods survivors, his headspace never really leaving the war, with the most prominent example in the film being the treatment of his son. Being back in Vietnam and increasingly paranoid about the mission (for both legitimate and not reasons), he just spirals mentally back into the war, and finally goes full Kurtz, now never really leaving the place for real both insides and outsides his head. Retreating into himself, divorced from friends and family, and finally killed after achieving peace with Norm in his head, feel like an apt catharsis for this character, rather than died or survived fighting during the climax.

]

[Grouchy]

[

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I actually think this an apt, if very sad, endpoint for his character arc. For his PTSD that is fueled more severely by his guilt over accidentally killing Norm, Paul fares worst than any of the 5 Bloods survivors, his headspace never really leaving the war, with the most prominent example in the film being the treatment of his son. Being back in Vietnam and increasingly paranoid about the mission (for both legitimate and not reasons), he just spirals mentally back into the war, and finally goes full Kurtz, now never really leaving the place for real both insides and outsides his head. Retreating into himself, divorced from friends and family, and finally killed after achieving peace with Norm in his head, feel like an apt catharsis for this character, rather than died or survived fighting during the climax.

]

Those are very good points. I can see it that way but I can't help feeling like there was something missing between him and his son, something that would give that relationship some closure... but not every movie has to fit my neat expectations, I guess.

Kind of off topic, but it's terrifying that even someone like Spike Lee has to cave in to the Internet lynching mobs.

[Peng]

The weird speed in which he does that (so fast that many news articles just group his initial answer and the follow-up tweet together) feels like he broadly supports Allen after hearing about some scandal, but then reads into that particular case so adds a qualifier. Might not be what actually happened, but it's jut what instantly comes to my mind on seeing the tweet, considering his impulsiveness like tweeting out an address that one time.

[Grouchy]

My guess is he believes Woody Allen is innocent because he has known the tortuous story behind the accusation for years but the social and maybe even financial pressure to cave in is probably too much to bear. Notice that the apology doesn't even mention Allen. He just says he's against sexual harassment.

Like Allen so eloquently put it into his awesome book which I just finished reading, "By God, [these actors and actresses] were against child molestation and were not afraid to say it".

[Pop Trash]

Like Allen so eloquently put it into his awesome book which I just finished reading, "By God, [these actors and actresses] were against child molestation and were not afraid to say it".

What? He's being facetious I presume? Not to derail this thread about THAT worn out shoe of a topic.

[Pop Trash]

Messy, melodramatic, moving, didactic, dialectic, Godardian, Brechtian. A Spike Lee Joint. I liked it.

Got a little misty eyed at the "black lives matter" scene in the same way I get a little misty eyed at the "I'm Malcolm X!" scene at the tail of Malcolm X. I do think Spike is getting a little rusty and old mannish in his "we gotta teach the kids a lesson!" ways. Do the Right Thing has a subtle use of dueling quotes from MLK and Malcolm X in standard font, while this ends with GIANT BLOCK LETTERS informing us that MLK was assassinated in 1968, as if anyone watching this never knew that. It feels a little KIDS GOTTA LEARN THEIR HISTORY self righteous.

[Grouchy]

What? He's being facetious I presume? Not to derail this thread about THAT worn out shoe of a topic.

Perhaps it's wrong to put that out of context. He's just saying that anyone who isn't a psychopath is against child molestation, yet by publicly condemning him or even saying they regret working with him, the actors score easy popularity points without dealing with the actual facts of the case. Regardless, yeah, we're running the risk of derailing the discussion of Da 5 Bloods.

Anyway, the book is very much worth a read. The Farrow debacle takes up maybe two chapters but the best part for me were the stories and inspiration behind each movie.

[Philip J. Fry]

[Dukefrukem]

Spike's movies tend to be bloated and overlong.

Yeh this feels this. The Chicken Salesman argument seemed to go on for 10 minutes. Should have been 45 seconds of screen time.

I'm digging it so far. Only watched half.

[DFA1979]

I thought this was very moving and well made. However the last act did drag on a bit, which is something Spike Lee likes to do a lot. My favorite part was [

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the group finding Norman. Very emotional scene.

]

[Morris Schæffer]

So really good this. 2 surprising credits grabbed my attention. The screenplay was written by the same guys who did the screenplay for The Rocketeer. Means nothing, but I thought it was cool. And it was executive produced by Jonathan Filley. Who he? He's the young man at the beginning of Jaws who follows Chrissie, but is too drunk to actually make it into the water. His only acting credit.