“A Spike Lee joint” as a phrase holds a lot of clout and more than deservedly so, and although sometimes we do get a BlacKKKlansman, I believe it’s fair to say that the days of the precise masterpieces where not a single frame is wasted are gone. Lee’s films nowadays are more often than not messy unwieldy features that are still events, but serve more so like grand thesis encompassing tons and tons more than one might originally think could be fit into (in this case) the story of a group of Vietnam vets travelling back to ‘Nam in search of buried gold and their friends remains. The parts of Da 5 Bloods where we do get that story are intense and intriguing, with one of the finest ensemble of actors I have seen in some time, each delivering performances overwhelmingly filled with power and drama. However as Lee is known to do, we will then cut in historical footage, play with conventions of editing, introduce breaks in the way we have conceived this story to be told. Half of the time these elements work well, but one must concede that despite its plethora of quality on display, Da 5 Bloods is a film that drowns under the weight of sub-plots and allegories that it has plagued itself with.
I really was in a way surprised when I found out that the film was originally a script penned by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo consisting of the core gold plot, then adapted and clearly lengthened by Lee and Kevin Willmott to make the story of four white vets a film about not only four black vets, but also the entire experience of black people in the Vietnam war, but also politics back home, but also the morals and ethics of war, but also the morals and ethics of money trading, but also the current modern world state of Vietnam. It would be lazy and reductive to equate the plotting and narrative of this film to a “then this happened” child-like concept, however one would struggle to relay the entirety of the films plot in one plotline. IMDB tries; “Four African-American vets battle the forces of man and nature when they return to Vietnam seeking the remains of their fallen squad leader and the gold fortune he helped them hide”. But this description does fail to mention the surrounding world of sub-plots and information that Lee injects into this unwieldy feature. Let’s talk about our titular Bloods, who frankly should pad out the male acting categories without a shadow of a doubt in my opinion. Their performances are undoubtedly the strongest aspect of this film. Many have noted Delroy Lindo as a standout, and trust me I agree as I will later comment, however for me the films strongest aspect is its ensemble making up the entirety of the Bloods, rather than just a Lindo standalone. Clarke Peters, Isah Whitlock Jr. and Norm Lewis all deliver similarly rapturous performances filled with power, frequent humour and more than enough drama to fuel the intense beast that this is. But yes Lindo does deserve all the acclaim he is receiving. It is a seminal and immediately iconic piece of work that transcends style of performance whilst also maintaining a brutal and effective arc, whilst also at points oozing so much power that his dynamic performance seemingly alters the style of filmmaking also. Sometimes it feels like Lee is following where Lindo takes him, more often it feels like Lindo is following Lee, but most of the time it is the undeniable feeling that a master director and an astounding actor have come together with an undeniably powerful character creation.
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It is of course the unfortunate truth however that for me the film amasses a true heap of flaws within its run-time, that can’t be masked by sensational usage of Marvin Gaye music, nor by sturdy performances. Lee wears the Apocalypse Now influence on his arm to a painfully embarrassing degree, with music choices and dialogue reinterpretation leading to repeated groaning from this critic. Within the writing there are handfuls of positives, but then fistfuls of contrivances. I don’t know if there’s a difference between them either frankly, but I’m trying to comment that for every intriguingly dimensional character (in particular Lindo’s Paul), there is a plethora of painfully forced foreshadowing’s and seemingly bitter and not very well orated political commentaries. But then Lee will offer us a more than intriguing deconstruction of modern America encompassed in one character, Lindo’s Paul again, but then he will undercut it with a pretty cheap, even if basely funny Trump jab. The film just has fundamental issues at its core that it doesn’t even bother making reasoning’s for. Our flashbacks to the past offer no makeup or effect on our aged stars and keep them looking the same age as they have the whole film, whereas one can make the simply argument that this is to show how we reflect on the past – it just comes off as a choice completely bungled. Lee frequently bungles certain editing choices and alterations of ratio also. I think I can fairly comment than on a technical level the film is a bit of a mess, a very enjoyable and deeply entertaining mess, but a mess all the same. A mess solidified by the atrocious uses of CGI and a genuinely laughable overly graphic practical effects explosion, removing any ounce of weight or tension from the proceedings. It baffles me deeply why Lee repeatedly undercuts himself, but I think the reason is of course that he doesn’t think he’s lessening his ‘joint’ in the slightest, only enhancing it.
A seriously messy 6/10 that frequently astounds with its power of performance and then frequently baffles with its technical choices. Bloods is less a film filled with contradictions, but more so a film seemingly at war itself. At war with balancing its many plots, many characters with its many political aims and goals. But at the end of the day Bloods is a 2 and a half hour feature that never once bores, however this is hardly due to concise and intrinsically made film, but rather because Lee is jamming the worth of five separate narratives and a documentary into one war epic. That being said it truly is a powerful, rousing and very entertaining film despite its many, many... many fundamental flaws.
P.S. And yes, seeing Chadwick Boseman as a literal angel is a very powerful thing indeed. However I think a nomination for this performance may actually do less good than one might hope. Boseman is brilliant in this film, but a nomination for Best Supporting Actor here feels unwarranted, whereas his nomination (and possible win) for Ma Rainey feels just and inevitable. I feel a nomination here may lead people to believe that all Boseman acting nominations in this Oscar race are purely down to sentiment and posthumous honouring, when any nomination for Rainey is the furthest thing from that I can conceive. This double bill of electric performances is a more than worthy send-off to a talent we lost far too soon. However I personally feel only one of those performances deserves its nomination, and frankly I believe it deserves to win.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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