DA 5 BLOODS: 4 STARS
Spike Lee movies are like onions. Peel off a layer and thereās a new one beneath. Take that off and another reveals itself. His latest, āDa 5 Bloods,ā now streaming on Netflix, is even more multi-faceted than usual.
The director calls it a āgumbo,ā a rich stew of varied ingredients. Itās a two-and-half-hour Vietnam War legacy film featuring a Trump supporter in a leading role. Itās a searing look at how African American soldiers fought in a war for a country that didnāt support them and itās an adventure film, à la āThe Treasure of the Sierra Madreā with action scenes and even buried treasure.
Most of all, it feels like a film that only Spike Lee, the auteur, could have made.
The story centers on the Bloods, MAGA-man Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and Eddie (Norm Lewis), four African American vets who return to Vietnam almost fifty years after their last tour of duty. They hope to recover the remains of, āthe best damn soldier who ever lived,ā their Squad Leader, Storminā Norman (Chadwick Boseman).
Itās a noble mission indeed, but thereās more. A lot more in the form of CIA gold bars intended as bribes for the Vietnamese government but hijacked by the Bloods and hidden in the jungle. āWeāve been dying for this country from the very get,ā says Norman in a flashback. āWe give this gold to our people.ā
It seems like a foolproof plan but almost as soon as the men land in Vietnam they are beset with problems, some new, some a product of their past. āBeing back here is not easy,ā says Paul.
āDa 5 Bloodsā weaves archival footage of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Angela Davis and Kwame Ture among others, and 60s era music into the narrative, creating a vivid portrait of time and place. Add to that a study of the effects of PTSD, political corruption and some interpersonal politics between the main charactersāincluding Jonathan Majors as Paulās estranged son Davidāaction scenes and a slimy banker (Jean Reno) and you have a big, bold movie that aims to entertain and reckon with social issues that linger years after the Vietnam War ended.
āDa 5 Bloodsā explores areas of the African American experience in Vietnam that have never been exclusively the subject of a film. Lee and co-writer Kevin Willmott, with whom the director shared an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for āBlacKkKlansman,ā have crafted a poignant, if slightly overlong, look at the lasting effects of fighting a war for freedoms the Bloods and their counterparts were being denied at home. āBlack GI,ā taunts propagandist Hanoi Hannah (Van Veronica Ngo) on Radio Hanoi, āis it fair to serve more than the white Americans who sent you here?ā
Lee makes daring choicesānot de-aging the older actors in the flashback scenes, for instanceābut never obscures the filmās central message.
āEvery time I walk out my front door I see cops patrolling my neighborhood like itās some kind of police state,ā Storminā Norman says, circa 1971. āI can feel just how much I aināt worth.ā
The pain and anger in those words, and in this film, is undiminished by the passing years.
THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND: 3 ½ STARS
For six seasons on āSaturday Night Liveā Pete Davidson has tempered humour with acute candor to forge a deeply personal kind of comedy based on his life experiences. His new film, āThe King of Staten Island,ā now on VOD, is his most self-confessional work yet.
Davidson plays Scott, a semi-fictional version of himself, as a directionless twenty-four-year old still living with his widowed mother Margie (Marisa Tomei).
When he was seven his firefighter father was killed in the line of duty, leaving a wound on Scottās psyche that has never healed. Heās so skinny and pale with such large dark circles under his eyes his on-and-off girlfriend Kelsey (Bel Powley) says he ālooks like an anorexic panda,ā and his patchwork of random tattoos leads a friend to call him a āhuman sketchbook.ā He dreams of one day opening up a restaurant-slash-tattoo parlor but spends most of his time smoking weed and hanging out with his childhood pals.
When Margie becomes romantically involved with Ray (Bill Burr), a firefighter with a hair trigger temper, it forces Scott to confront the past tragedy in his life so he can move forward.
āThe King of Staten Islandā is an imagined version of Davidsonās life if he hadnāt found comedy and become famous. His father Scott was a member of Ladder Company 118 in Brooklyn Heights and died responding to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That loss has become the bedrock of his work and provides the emotional backbone of this film.
Director Judd Apatow is no stranger to making films with big hearts and dirty mouths. Like his previous films, like āTrainwreck,ā he frontloads the story with outrageous laughs that slowly give way to a funny but more restrained resolution.
Along the way Davidson delivers a performance that lifts his patented millennial slacker routine to a new level. Heās a natural performer, charismatic and likeable, with a deep well of emotion that lies just beneath his pothead exterior. Heās a perfect vessel to tell a story about someone experiencing profound loss.
The supporting cast is terrific. Burr embodies the ragehead with a heart of gold, drifting through life while Tomei has an interesting arc as a woman who lets go of the past to find a new future.
The premise of āThe King of Staten Islandā doesnāt sound like the stuff of comedy but this story of how tragedy effects a family balances humour with heartfelt and humanistic observations in a very winning way.
ARTEMIS FOWL: 2 ½ STARS
āArtemis Fowl,ā a fantasy film streaming on Disney+, is brand spanking new but thereās a feeling of déjà vu that hangs over the entire film. Adapted from the beloved books by Eoin Colfer, the movie feels like an expensive mix-and-match of āHarry Potterā and āLord of the Rings.ā
Newcomer Ferdia Shaw is Artemis Fowl Jr., a poor little rich kid and budding criminal mastermind with the sartorial sense of Will Smith in āMen in Blackā and an IQ that would give Einstein a run for his money.
When his father (Colin Farrell) is kidnapped, the youngster, along with his trusty bodyguard Domovoi Butler (Nonso Anozie), and some help from elf reconnaissance officer Holly Short (Lara McDonnell) and Josh Gad as Hagrid wannabe Mulch Diggums, sets off on a quest to locate him. To pay the kidnapperās ransom Artemis and Company must infiltrate the mysterious underground world of fairies, led by Commander Root (Judi Dench), and take charge of the Aculos, the fairiesā most coveted magical apparatus. āArtemis,ā says Domovoi, āitās time to face your destiny.ā
Question is, Will young Arteās brains be a match for their fairy magic? Thereās more but further details involve major spoilers.
Fans of the books take note, āArtemis Fowlāsā origin story takes liberties with the books. Both Holly Short and Mulch are allies from the get-go and daddy Fowl didnāt turn up until the second book in the series.
Structural changes aside, the film adaptation lacks much of the charm of Colferās writing. It does capture Artemisā growth from innocent unaware of the world of magic and intrigue his father operates in, to almost anti-hero, but despite large scale set pieces and many action scenes it feels been there, done that.
Director Kenneth Branagh has crafted a handsome but generic fantasy film, complete with āAvengersā style special effects and a sweeping soundtrack that feels like the set-up to a franchise and not a stand-alone story. If you donāt believe me, check out Artemisā last line in the movie. āWe have some unfinished business.ā Itās like a ninety-minute trailer for the next installment.
āArtemis Fowlā may survive to have more on-screen adventures, perhaps filling the hole for fantasy fans left by the absence of āHarry Potterā movies, but next time around fewer special effects and more personality would help.
IT MUST BE HEAVEN: 3 ½ STARS
Palestinian actor/director Elia Suleiman has made a career of exploring his national identity. In his new film, āIt Must Be Heaven,ā he continues on that trajectory by visiting New York and Paris. In one scene Suleiman, starring as a character known as ES, pitches the very movie weāre watching to a Parisian film producer (Vincent Maraval) who rejects the idea with a scoff.
āItās not Palestinian enough,ā he says. āIt could take place anywhere, even here,ā which, as it turns out, is the entire idea behind the story.
ES is a deadpan, mostly silent Mr-Bean-by-way-of-Charlie-Chaplin character who lives in Nazareth. Heās the star of a series of vignettes, each featuring slice-of-life situations. A neighbour steals lemons from the tree in his yard.
āDonāt think Iām stealing,ā the man says. āI knocked on the door, but nobody was there.ā
In New York he encounters heavily armed people in a Brooklyn grocery storeācomplete with ammo belts spilling out of baby carriagesāand while in Paris thereās a sparrow who flies through his Paris window and hops on his keyboard as he tries to write.
Each disconnected story fragment uses surreal humour as an allegory to illuminate the politics and conflicts of his home but the further he travels the more he realises that the ills of his homeland are universal ailments, not specific to his home.
āIt Must Be Heavenā is a finely crafted, unique movie that revels in its absurdity. Suleiman is a keen observer, both as a director and the filmās star. He spends a great deal of the movie watching the action around him, inviting us, as the viewer, to watch and learn with him. He welcomes us to observe and decode the situations with him, gently easing us into his new, expanded world view.
