Da 5 Bloods [Spike Lee]

My thoughts from the Netflix thread:

Da 5 Bloods is definitely worth your time. It’s an uneven beast: there’s a search for gold caper at the centre of the plot that honest to god feels like it’s from a completely different script that Lee built the distinctly Spike Lee stuff around (as far as I can tell, that was actually the case!). But for a film with lots of action and adventure, the characters are angry and troubled in ways that rang true for me. It’s a film about the aftermath of the Vietnam War on both Americans and Vietnamese - the survivors scarred, and the two countries changed. The heroes aren’t particularly heroic at all, prone to selfish acts and in some cases paralysed by trauma, regret and guilt.

Like BlacKkKlansman it draws a real connecting line between the 60s/70s and modern America, with archive footage and overt references to modern politics throughout. The references to Black Lives Matter make it seem eerily timely, but not the first - and likely not the last - time a Lee joint will feel relevant simply because the issues he returns to never seem to go away. Not all the strands come together by any stretch - again likely a casualty of an existing script repurposed - but it’s an interesting, often compelling watch for sure.

To add to that: Klansman felt flat to me at times, so I preferred this a little, although wouldn’t rate it as highly as his best work (sadly all his recent films tend to be uneven to varying degrees - triply so for Chiraq).

Also would be a nice one to see in the cinema, as the shifting aspect ratios (alluded to by Fysh in the other thread) would have been nice to see on the big screen - especially the moment where it blows up full screen to encompass the vast Vietnamese landscape. But alas circumstances were not in anyone’s favour this time around!

Shout out to the decision to not cast younger actors for the flashbacks - definitely grounded me in the story and underlined the absence of Da Fifth Blood.