DA 5 BLOODS (2020)

Rated: R

STARS: Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock JR., Jonathan Majors, Chadwick Boseman
DIRECTOR: Spike Lee
GENRE: Action/Adventure

Da 5 Bloods--Spike Lee's latest--is a topical film that pulls into the station right on time to take its place in the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement.

The "bloods" are a group of African-American veterans (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Jonathan Majors, and Chadwick Boseman--their fallen squad leader shown through flashbacks) returning to modern day Vietnam to search for the remains of their comrade and a big stash of gold they buried, with the intent of someday returning to claim it.

But despite the normalization of relations between the two countries, not all is rosy, as long held resentments and anti-American sentiment among some of the local populace begin to stir at the sight of the former G.I.s. Nonetheless, they head off into the jungle, as misguided as they were all those years ago as pawns in the tragic and costly geopolitical game their country was asking them to play.

They'll be shadowed by some locals with bad intent, and all we have to do is sit back and wait for all hell to break loose. Which it does, because Spike Lee is trying to straddle the line between giving us a poignant and meaningful reassessment of the war from a black perspective, snatching the narrative  from all those white filmmakers who came before, and a traditional action/adventure film with all the inherent Sam Peckinpah style shoot 'em up and gratuitous violence that goes with that territory. I wish he would have chosen one or the other, because what we end up with is an overly long, uneven film that suffers under the weight of trying to be too many things to too many people. 

Still, Da 5 Bloods is a movie worth seeing--part of the modern day mosaic of a rapidly changing world that doesn't know exactly where it's going, but hopes to count on some lessons learned from the past to get there, hopefully, in one piece.   

Now playing on Netflix.

Grade: B-

JILL'S TAKE

If the Oscars take place in 2021, I know who's gonna win one: Delroy Lindo. His portrayal of Paul, the classic victim of PTSD and the ravages of war, was beyond brilliant. Lindo is a veteran actor you've seen in dozens of roles (The Good Fight, Ransom, Law & Order, etc.) who will finally earn the accolades he so richly deserves.

And while I'm on the subject of actors in this superb film, I want to mention another one: Jean Reno. At first, I didn't recognize him. But once I heard that French accent, I remembered his unforgettable performance as an assassin in Leon: The Professional, charmed and even bossed around by a young Natalie Portman. In Da 5 Bloods, he plays another 'professional.' Only this time it's smuggling rather than killing.

Where to begin? First of all, for a two and a half hour movie, Spike Lee's tour de force didn't feel the least bit long to me. And unlike most films with lots of mini-plots, I was equally engrossed in all of them. Yes, there was plenty of gore and war. But the way the director wove shock value into the story didn't feel the least bit gratuitous. And another cinematic stroke of genius that Lee employed, one that could only work on TV, was using the small screen in flashbacks and the big screen in the present. (Kind of like memories versus reality.)

Usually, by my third paragraph, I find something to criticize. Maybe I'm just so starved for seeing a new film that my gratitude outweighs my critical faculties but I can find nothing to nit-pick in Da 5 Bloods. Even Lee's use of the word 'Da' is wonderfully original.

Sadly, the release of this film is incredibly well-timed. But even if it weren't, and even if COVID-19 didn't make movie-going impossible, I would urge everyone to watch this quintessential war movie.

Grade: A-

   

LBJ (2017)

LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto

Rated:  R

STARS: Woody Harrelson, Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Richard Jenkins
DIRECTOR: Rob Reiner
GENRE: Docudrama


Many of us who lived through the sixties remember Lyndon Baines Johnson as a redneck from Texas who rose above the prejudices of his upbringing to instigate the most important piece of social legislation in the history of the United States--the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But we also despised him for escalating the Vietnam war, and it was his unpopularity due to the war that brought him to the decision not to run for a second term. That aspect of his legacy is given scant attention in LBJ. Instead, the film concentrates almost exclusively on the period leading up to the historic legislation of 1964 and how it was accomplished. So in this particular version of history, the man comes out smelling like a rose.

The major flaw in LBJ is that it's too talky--way too talky--as Johnson twists arms and makes deals, even while sitting on the crapper. Not unexpected, I suppose, for a character study about a politician (too much talk and not enough action!) Rob Reiner--a director I admire--does what he can to counteract the draggy parts by interspersing them with an impressively realistic recreation of that terrible day in Dallas when John Fitzgerald Kennedy met his fate.

Woody Harrelson knocks it out of the park in the title role. Only they've got him made up to look even uglier (sorta grotesque even) than the real Lyndon Johnson was, and that's saying something. On the other hand, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lady Bird Johnson is so spot on in appearance and mannerism it's scary. You have to use your imagination with the rest of the supporting cast---Jeffrey Donovan in particular, who bears little resemblance to JFK, though he has the accent down. I guess William Devane is too old to play the forever young president now. 

Those who remember the charismatic Bobby Kennedy will be taken aback by Michael Stahl-David's portrayal. He comes off as a kind of vindictive little shit in his not so well publicized at the time feud with LBJ. I don't think it does Bobby's legacy justice.

But LBJ is a film you may want to see--especially if you're a history buff--as it provides some deft insight into the character of the 36th president of the United States.   

Grade:  B -

JILL'S TAKE

Tim pretty much covered it in his review. I, too, thought they overdid the makeup on Woody Harrelson. (On the other hand, I thought Bryan Cranston as LBJ in "All The Way" looked incredibly like the former president.) What I admired most about this cinematic slice of history was the editing. Whether the credit belongs to Rob Reiner (director), Joey Hartstone (screenplay writer) or Bob Joyce (film editor), the way they kept flashing back and forth between Dallas and JFK's actual assassination, and LBJ's life before that horrific event, was a definite tension-builder.

For me, the one actor Tim didn't mention gave an Oscar-worthy performance. Having already received a Best Actor nomination for The Visitor(2009), Richard Jenkins deserves a Best Supporting Actor this year for playing the old school segregationist Senator Richard Russell. (Jenkins became one of my personal favorites when he appeared in the TV series "Six Feet Under.")

But while I'm on the subject of Oscars, I'm sorry that Woody Harrelson, who will probably be nominated twice this year for both this flick and The Glass Castle, won't win anything. (Double nominees never do.) If I were voting, I'd give him the gold statuette for his role as Rex Walls not LBJ....

As I was leaving the theater, comparing notes with my film-going accomplice, an elderly woman turn to us and said "We lived through this time, didn't we!" It made me wonder how a younger generation, one unfamiliar with this particular segment of political history, would view the movie. Would it hold their attention? I'm betting it would.

Grade: B +

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (2013)

Rated:  PG-13

Stars: Robert Redford,  Shia LaBeouf,  Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie

Director: Robert Redford

Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Political Thriller 


The Boston Marathon bombing has given The Company You Keep  a kind of relevance and topicality it might not otherwise have appeared to possess. The film pings upon historical events from the politically turbulent sixties and seventies to present a fictionalized story that bears the ring of authenticity.   

The Weather Underground, which came to be known as the Weathermen, grew out of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late sixties.  It was a revolutionary group that conducted bombings of U.S. government buildings, and other targets, primarily in protest of the Vietnam war. As the movie opens,  a  former member of the group, Sharon Solarz, (Susan Sarandon) who had been hiding out as a suburban housewife, is preparing to turn herself in for her part in a bank robbery that turned deadly back in the seventies.  (Look up Sara Jane Olsen, aka Kathleen Soliah!) 

The ensuing publicity results in one of her cohorts, lawyer Jim Grant, being ferreted out by  cub reporter Ben Shepard, (Shia LaBeouf) who is still cutting his teeth at an Albany, New York newspaper.  Grant (Robert Redford) is in reality Nick Sloan, and he may or may not be guilty of having participated in that same robbery. He goes on the run to attempt to prove his innocence, and in the process reunites with some of his old comrades, which gives Nick Nolte, Richard Jenkins, and Julie Christie a reason to be in this movie.  

Sloan is particularly anxious to hook up with his old flame, Mimi Lurie, (Julie Christie) who, unlike some of the others, hasn't developed a different perspective through the passage of time. (Christie, who is now in her early seventies, is eerily reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn here.)  Lurie is unapologetic for carrying the same ideals that galvanized her, and many of her contemporaries back in the day, to demonstrate what people power can actually accomplish by bringing an unjust war to an end.  When their clandestine meeting finally occurs,  Lurie still has fire in her eyes--still railing against a system that brought us Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the loss of so many innocent lives on all sides. 

 I think it was Redford's intention, by taking on this project,  to give a little poke at a society that has grown complacent in many ways--and to say HEY, the questions raised in the Vietnam era haven't gone away--they are still here, as relevant today as they ever were. 

To those too young to have lived through these events, The Company You Keep may simply seem to be relating a tale of homegrown terrorism from another era.  Baby boomers are more likely to grasp the complexity of the issues that existed at the time. And while there is  no disputing that  their actions were tragically misguided, the difference between organizations like The Weathermen and the Boston bombers is that the former believed that they loved their country, whereas the latter apparently hated it. 

That said, The Company You Keep  does a good job of bringing some balanced perspective to an era that becomes ever more misunderstood as time passes and we grow farther and farther away from the fact. Efforts to try to rewrite history for the purpose of promoting a particular agenda are something that should be vigilantly guarded against.

There are some intriguing twists and turns, and a few loose ends don't get tied up at the conclusion, but beyond the nuts and bolts of the plot, The Company You Keep is a thoughtful attempt to examine still relevant questions about the use and misuse of government power.

Grade:  B +