Da 5 Bloods

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.

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.

I really wanted to like this movie, but the writing was all over the place and the pace was so boring. This is not a classic war movie, it's just a bunch of guys complaining how they got treated badly by the man. Just boring.

Whoa....this was a hell of a ride! Now, if you are expecting Da 5 Bloods to be a movie in the sense of a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, it might not work for you. I am not sure myself it worked for me but I didn't feel like I could just ignore it either. This is like a pile of political, emotional and historical statements not necessarily linked in one single bundle. At times it ends up being a Tarantino-like mess, but with relevance. It is surely timely, it is heavily politically loaded, it is emotional and intense, angered but also ironical and lighthearted at moments. Maybe not to be judged, let alone rated, but just to be absorbed.

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.