After the triumph of “BlacKkKlansman,” celebrated director-writer Spike Lee teams with streaming staple Netflix for his equally, if not exceedingly, rich head-rolling war drama “Da 5 Bloods.” Seeded in the rough fern-land of Vietnam, it unfurls the adventure of veteran best friends Paul (Delroy Lindo), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), Otis (Clark Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis) to search for the body of their fallen comrade Stormin' Norm (Chadwick Boseman) plus a gold stash they left behind while on tour. The old dogs are accompanied by Paul's son, David (Jonathan Majors), whose father-son dynamic is immediately pleated.
"Da 5 Bloods" courses through a hop n' mishap montage of America’s milestones plus infamous bygones — from the Apollo 11 moon mission to the Vietnam war heinousness. From the 1:1 screened intro (an antique television size), the Spike Lee joint transitions into 4:3 aspect in 16mm film. Along the movie, the screen warps into portals: 1:1 is for then (resembling the size of photographs and oldie boob tubes) and 4:3 is for now (a lengthened purview for the veterans' broadened outlook). The transitions are a schizophrenic approach, connoting Paul’s fissures. Lee goes for the non-linear chronology which clarifies “Da 5 Bloods” as the touchstones catch up to the Vietnam woodland. Co-scribed by Lee, Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo, and Kevin Willmott the screenplay is packed with bramble-berry talk like "Bloods don't die, we multiply." Onwards in a club, Lee inserts an "Apocalypse Now" backdrop, a film also about the Vietnam battles. But that is the sole nod to the picture because "Da 5 Bloods" is as original as the Bible.
An interfused footage of news about President Donald Trump in a rally is made into a cut-away gag to point out the opinion of the African-American squad. The punchline zaps back to reel time: "Fake news." A fusion of the teeth-grating "Triple Frontier" plus the gut-punch "Tropic Thunder," this Spike Lee joint is chock full of protein shake and acid. From the ravaged warfield, "Da 5 Bloods" re-warps to the Vietnam metropolis where the McDonald's is a striking russet, one of the many span-manipulating sequences. Boseman being the fabled Norman is noticeably young alongside his older-faced peers, an exclamation of the memory tidbits of Paul, Otis, Norm, and Melvin, therefore, "Da 5 Bloods" is an expressionist concoction.
Besides the dream-induced storytelling, Lee sews in a reflection of America's current situation. The troops are all black in a foreign land which is self-conflicted; their external likings contort into each other's, siring racism across an already conflicted state. Diversifying the crowd, there is the French bomb-diffuser/philanthropist Hedy (Mélanie Thierry) then Otis' Black-Asian daughter Michon (Sandy Huong Pham). A stew of characters emanate the differing prisms of Americanism. Clearing the mayhem is Newton Thomas Sigel's adaptive cinematography. His camera regularizes the ultra-energy in "Da 5 Bloods" whilst the irregularity of its aspect ratio. The lighting is consistent in square-cut and stretched captures, limning Vietnam ranges among the slanted plain where the men dig for their gold — possibly a message of the uphill and unstable conflict these Bloods have to overcome.
Lindo being Paul clad with a MAGA hat nails his act; the embodiment of a community fed up plus let down by the norms that he holds on to the promise of making America great again amid implosion. Suffering from PTSD, Paul is partly delirious, incorporating his paranoia unto the quest. His twitches come in mangling outbursts. Lindo's maniacal growls evolves him to a nuclear species. When he spews scriptures, there is holiness even in the intoxicated personage. In a scene, Paul recites "The Lord is my shepherd" verse as he treads into the jungle from the Bloods. He mollifies the scripture with a devlish echo; an undefiled acting that would likely appease Laurence Olivier. Then, Paul ensues a scalding rant about how he defies seizure and would perish at his peril. Lindo's paranoid monologue is meta, fixated and crazed in claustrophobic close-up despite the widened ratio, virtually demolishing the fourth wall. But in Lee's phantasm, Paul bellows particularly to himself, with his footnote "Right on," fist clenched above, the uncanny adulation to his psychotic speech. "Da 5 Bloods" bubbles of Lee's stylistic armory. Among his cinematic signatures, the double dolly zoom, he demonstrates: David and Michon's reunion is punctuated by the zooming then upclose wheeling to emulate their swirling internal highness, since over the nimbus lies gold that Vietnam soil could never bury.
Director: Spike Lee
Image & Trailer © Netflix; YouTube.com
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