DA 5 BLOODS (US - 2020) Directed by Spike Lee. Written by Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee. Cast: Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr, Chadwick Boseman, Jean Reno, Melanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jasper Paakkonen, Johnny Tri Nguyen, Le Y Lan, Nguyen Ngoc Lam, Sandy Huong Pham, Van Veronica Ngo. (R, 155 mins) His 2018 film BLACKkKLANSMAN reflected a still-open wound with its release timed to the one-year anniversary of the Charlottesville tragedy, but DA 5 BLOODS finds Spike Lee making a film boiling with such rage over systemic racism that it could've been shot in the last two weeks. Of course, that systemic racism is there and always has been, but no film in recent memory has felt more "of the moment" than this, a sprawling and ambitious epic that does, on a few occasions, get too uneven and too unwieldy for its good. Lee and BLACKkKLANSMAN co-writer Kevin Willmott extensively reworked an existing script called THE LAST TOUR, written in 2013 by the team of Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, who got their start in the '80s writing cult sci-fi B movies like TRANCERS and ELIMINATORS for Charles Band's Empire Pictures. They soon moved up to THE ROCKETEER for Disney and into TV with the CBS series THE FLASH (DA 5 BLOODS also marks the final writing credit for DeMeo, who died in 2018 and gets a special acknowledgement in the end credits). Bilson and DeMeo have always had an affinity for men-on-a-mission wartime scenarios, from 1986's ZONE TROOPERS all the way to 2013's DTV video-game spinoff THE COMPANY OF HEROES and it's their LAST TOUR script that provides the foundation for DA 5 BLOODS, as four aging vets go back to Vietnam of the present day, ostensibly to retrieve the remains of their fallen friend, but with a second, off-the-record reason: to retrieve a chest of CIA gold they retrieved from a plane crash in 1971 and buried.
That B-movie premise has Bilson's and DeMeo's fingerprints all over it--one can imagine them saying "It's THE DEER HUNTER meets KELLY'S HEROES!"--but Lee goes bigger. He's mining superficially similar territory here with the African-American POV of his 2008 WWII film MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA, but DA 5 BLOODS tracks the fury of '60s activism (clips of Malcolm X, MLK, Kwame Ture) all the way through to the advent of Black Lives Matter and the Age of Trump, whose presence is felt here even beyond being referred to as "President Fake Bone Spurs." The four vets are Otis (Clarke Peters), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Paul (Delroy Lindo), and though an ensemble piece for the most part, it's Paul who becomes the emotional center of the film. Still suffering from PTSD, short-tempered, paranoid, and with an ever-present chip on his shoulder and looking for confrontation everywhere, staunch conservative Paul is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off even before he starts parroting Trump talking points about immigrants, fake news, and "building the wall," plus other derogatory terms for the Vietnamese people. All of the men are haunted by the death of their unit leader and friend "Stormin' Norman" (Chadwick Boseman in flashbacks), killed in action back in 1971 just after they retrieved and buried the gold, but Paul has been unable to move on. That extends to his fractured relationship with his son David (Jonathan Majors), a liberal Black Studies instructor at Morehouse who's earned nothing but scornful derision from his father ("You've been an anchor around my neck since the day you were born"). Though there's no affection between them, David shows up at their Saigon hotel unexpectedly out of concern for his dad and insists on tagging along, telling him "You've been acting more crazy than usual."
Through wealthy investment broker Tien (Le Y Lan), a former prostitute that Otis knew during what the Vietnamese call "The American War," they meet with Desroche (Jean Reno), a French money launderer who agrees to convert the gold to cash for a 22% share (it was only 20%, but Paul starts getting belligerent about Normandy and how America had to "save France's ass" during WWII). With a map provided by guide Vinh (Johnny Tri Nguyen), they head back into the jungles of 'Nam in search of the gold and the burial spot of Stormin' Norman, with Paul sporting a red MAGA hat to everyone's disdain. The journey begins with a slow boat ride accompanied by Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," which isn't the only APOCALYPSE NOW reference over the course of the film. There's even an APOCALYPSE NOW banner in a nightclub in downtown Saigon, where neon signs for McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and KFC illustrate how things have changed in the nearly 50 years since they were last there. There's also an invocation of "We don't need no stinkin' badges!" from THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, and the references, shout-outs and the loose, freewheeling nature--with occasional cutaways to North Vietnamese radio propagandist Hanoi Hannah (Van Veronica Ngo)-- make this feel like a Quentin Tarantino film at times, not in terms of any revisionist history (Melvin does take the time to mock the '80s "free the POW" movies of Sylvester Stallone and "Walker, Texas Ranger"), but in a more enraged and politically substantive manner. Unlike what Bilson and DeMeo wrote for THE LAST TOUR, DA 5 BLOODS explores in depth the experience of the black soldier in Vietnam (Hanoi Hannah reminding them "Black G.I., is it fair that Negroes make up 11% of the US population but among American troops, you are 32%?) in ways that Hollywood typically hasn't focused on, aside from the mid '90s films DEAD PRESIDENTS and the virtually forgotten THE WALKING DEAD.
DA 5 BLOODS doesn't always feel cohesive as far as how the Bilson/DeMeo material meshes with what was written later by Lee and Willmott. At times, it's a straight-up treasure-hunt adventure once some Vietnamese adversaries led by the embittered Quan (Nguyen Ngoc Lam) enter the picture. It's also prone to some hard-to-swallow contrivances, like the discovery of the gold and Stormin' Norman's remains, as well as a trio of activists (Melanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, and Jasper Paakkonen) who go into war zones to find and defuse land mines showing up exactly when their services are needed. Terence Blanchard's otherwise fine score seems a little intrusive and overbearing in the flashbacks, which Lee frames in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, with the jungle sequences at 1.85 and the Saigon scenes at 2.35. And as welcome as it might be, the anti-Trump sentiment feels occasionally wedged in, especially in an earlier scene where David has a conversation with the three activists at a Saigon bar. Lee also takes a big risk in having Lindo, Peters, Lewis, and Whitlock play their characters in the flashbacks minus any IRISHMAN-like CGI de-aging, but it works because they're presented in a kind-of stream-of-consciousness fashion and he mainly keeps the four of them in shadows or in the background as the focus is on Boseman. All in all, DA 5 BLOODS is a powerful film with a startling resonance to things happening right now. It also boasts a career-best performance by an absolutely riveting Lindo, who's alternately despicable, heartbreaking, and utterly devastating as Paul, whose story and the source of his Vietnam anguish, and the reasons he's been such an asshole to his son, don't fully come into view until late in the film, though you'll probably figure some of it out before then. Be sure to watch through the very end of the closing credits to catch a fun stinger for Isiah Whitlock Jr superfans.
The venerable Shout! Factory has released another four-film, budget-priced "Movie Marathon" package on the heels of their excellent "Action-Packed Movie Marathon" from a few months back. This time, however, the results are mixed at best. They were upfront well before the release with the fact that three of the four films in this sci-fi package were being presented in cropped, 1.33 full frame transfers, which is really inexcusable at this point in time. But, those are the materials they got for these titles in their licensing deal with MGM and that's the best with which they had to work. It's just unfortunate that a genuine cult movie like ELIMINATORS is finally represented on DVD, and it looks like little more than a slightly cleaned-up VHS transfer. Shout! Factory is run by people who love these movies, and if they say that's what they had at their disposal, then that's what they had. You can't knock 'em all out of the park, and they've done enough great things for cult movie preservation that they can certainly get a pass for an occasional flubbed, second-rate job like this one. With a list price of $9.99 for four movies (no extras, not even trailers), it comes out to about $2.50 per flick, so when it's all put in perspective, I guess it's not that bad.
Disc 1 offers 1991's ARENA and 1986's ELIMINATORS, a double feature showcasing the collaborative efforts of Empire Pictures fixtures Peter Manoogian, Danny Bilson, and Paul DeMeo. Manoogian directed several films for Empire (including 1987's high-rise mayhem gem ENEMY TERRITORY), and these two were penned by the TRANCERS writing team of Bilson (father of THE O.C.'s Rachel Bilson) and DeMeo, who would go on to script Disney's THE ROCKETEER (1991), produce the CBS superhero series THE FLASH, and create the UPN series THE SENTINEL. On the merits of TRANCERS alone, Bilson & DeMeo are a cult duo deserving of far more attention and employment than they've received. The pair haven't scripted a feature since THE ROCKETEER. They spent much of the last decade writing and designing video games, and got a story credit on this year's COMPANY OF HEROES, a WWII vehicle with Tom Sizemore and Vinnie Jones that went straight to DVD, as it starred Tom Sizemore and Vinnie Jones. Disc 2 presents a pair of one-and-done big-screen directing efforts from screenwriters who should've avoided the urge to get behind the camera: Cannon's forgotten 1986 post-nuke effort AMERICA 3000 and the 1987 Australian TERMINATOR-inspired THE TIME GUARDIAN.
Manoogian, Bilson, and De Meo first teamed on this engagingly silly sci-fi actioner that, like TRANCERS, has aspirations well beyond its budget. The basic summary is that a ragtag group of heroes joins forces to stop Abbott Reeves (Roy Dotrice), a time-traveling, megalomaniacal madman who wants to change the course of world history by going back to rule ancient Rome. One of his creations is Mandroid (Patrick Reynolds), a military pilot shot down in action and transformed into a cyborg with an accompanying tank-like mobile unit. When Reeves tries to decommission him, the Mandroid escapes and finds Dr. Nora Hunter (Denise Crosby, around the same time she appeared in Black Sabbath's "No Stranger to Love" video and a year before STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION), who created the android technology used to assemble him and is unaware that Reeves is using it for evil purposes. Nora, along with her helpful pet-like robot S.P.O.T., decides to accompany Mandroid to deep into Mexico to find his secret underground jungle lair and they hire cynical river guide Harry Fontana (Andrew Prine) to guide them. Some time later, the three meet up with ninja Kuji (Conan Lee), the son of Reeves' sympathetic assistant, who was killed for trying to help Mandroid escape. The quartet battles rival boatmen in the employ of Reeves, plus some Neanderthals brought back by Reeves during one of his time-traveling excursions.
After a clunky opening, ELIMINATORS finds a nice groove and gets much better as it proceeds, even if takes too long to get all of the heroes together (Lee doesn't even appear until a little over an hour in). One element of ELIMINATORS that's a bit ahead of its time is the way the film often becomes a sort-of meta-commentary on itself, usually in the form of Fontana's disbelief at the lunacy happening around him ("What is this, some kinda goddamn comic book? We got robots, we got cavemen, we got kung fu!"). One of the more ambitious productions of Empire's glory days, ELIMINATORS isn't always successful (the first half could use some tightening), but it hits a lot more than it misses, and really gets a nice momentum going in its last third. ELIMINATORS could've benefitted from a decent restoration--or at least presented in its proper aspect ratio--and really deserves its own special edition release with a commentary track from the filmmakers. Shortly after co-starring in this, Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds and eventual black sheep of the Reynolds tobacco family, would quit acting to denounce the family business and become a prominent anti-smoking activist. (PG, 96 mins)
AMERICA 3000 (US - 1986)
I haven't seen everything released by Cannon, but I've seen enough to make the judgment call that AMERICA 3000 could very well be the worst film they ever made. The lone directorial effort from DEATH WISH II screenwriter David Engelbach, AMERICA 3000 takes place in post-nuke Colorado, 900 years after the end of civilization. The world is once again in caveman times, and ruled by women, who are known as "tiaras," with men--aka "seeders" if they're well-hung or "machos" if they're slaves--the subservient class. Nomadic warrior Corbus (Chuck Wagner, fresh off the title role on the short-lived NBC series AUTOMAN) has taught himself to read from an old childrens book he found and tries to lead the machos and seeders into a fight for equality that's actually supported by Tiara leader Vena (Laurene Landon), who reluctantly took charge upon the passing of her beloved Tiara mother (Camilla Sparv, the only somewhat big name in the cast, and she's dead by the 15-minute mark). Vena doesn't have the support of her underlings, namely her jealous sister Lakella (Victoria Barrett), who leads a revolt against her. I think AMERICA 3000 is trying to be a comedy, but it's so painfully unfunny that it's hard to tell. Engelbach makes some half-hearted attempts at political satire--the voiceover narration of Corbus' brother, played by William Wallace, mentions a "Camp Reagan," with the caveat "I never figured out what 'Reagan' meant," and Corbus finds the underground bunker of the US President, still in pristine condition after 900 years with a functioning boombox and an arcade version of Centipede, and watches a video tape that convinces him that he is the "Pres-ee-dent" as he pronounces it--but he just has nothing to say and his sole purpose seems to be to make this as gratingly annoying as possible. The constant use of the film's own specific post-nuke slang (tiaras, seeders, machos, "woggos" for crazy, "hot eats" for food, "scan-it" for seeing), makes for maddening dialogue like "You're machos, but I'm a free man. You hungry? We've got hot eats, scan-it?" that would make it hard to follow the plot if there was one.
There's probably a lot of reasons there weren't many post-nuke comedies in the '80s, and AMERICA 3000 should be labeled Exhibit A. Golan & Globus spent $2 million on this thing? It's one of Cannon's most obscure titles and it should've stayed that way. If they wanted a post-nuke comedy that was in the MGM library, Shout! would've been better off putting the sublimely ridiculous 1985 version of SHE with Sandahl Bergman on this set. Unfunny, uninspired, unwatchable, and cropped to 1.33, I can't imagine anyone getting anything remotely enjoyable or entertaining out of AMERICA 3000. Look, I love Shout! Factory, and they're doing great things, but there's so many more worthwhile things they could've resurrected. Are there really AMERICA 3000 fans out there? Any whose surname isn't Engelbach? It's not even entertaining on a "so bad, it's good" level. It's just bad. Engelbach went on to write an early draft of 1987's OVER THE TOP that was reworked by star Sylvester Stallone, but he's been MIA since writing a few episodes of MACGYVER in the late '80s. (PG-13, 93 mins)
THE TIME GUARDIAN (Australia - 1987; 1989 US release)
The only film in this set presented in its proper aspect ratio (2.35:1 anamorphic), THE TIME GUARDIAN is a big-budget 1987 Australian sci-fi film that took two years to get a token US release from Hemdale in the fall of 1989. I know I rented the VHS back then and recall thinking the film was bad, but 23 or so years on, I remembered nothing about it until this revisit. Yep...still terrible. There's promising ingredients: nice-looking BLADE RUNNER-esque production design, an interesting concept, directed and co-written by Brian Hannant, who co-wrote THE ROAD WARRIOR, so he certainly knows his way around a sci-fi action movie...but THE TIME GUARDIAN never really comes together. Here's a situation where some bonus features would be nice, as Hannant has said in the years since that interference from Hemdale and script changes that were forced on him ended up compromising the film. It's clear that Hannant was shown the door at some point during production, since second-unit director A.J. Prowse is also credited with directing additional scenes with an entirely different crew. Whatever drama went down behind the scenes was probably more interesting than anything that ended up onscreen, and it seemed to have a career-altering impact on the now-73-year-old Hannant: 26 years later, he has yet to direct or write another film.
Opening in the year 4039, THE TIME GUARDIAN deals with a post-apocalyptic world where armies of armored robots known as Jen-Diki have wiped out almost all of humanity. That is, except for one domed city that has found a way to bounce back and forth through time when the Jen-Diki find them. Two warriors--the tough-as-nails Ballard (Tom Burlinson of THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER) and 20th century expert Petra (Carrie Fisher, onboard to lure in the STAR WARS crowd) are sent by their leader (Dean Stockwell, who puts in a few scenes and goes off to enjoy his paid Australian vacation) to survey 1988 Australia in a daring attempt to trap the Jen-Diki and be done with them once and for all. Petra is quickly injured and sidelined (meaning, the filmmakers probably only had Fisher for a few days) as Ballard teams up with attractive local geologist Annie (Nikki Coghill) and some aborigines to thwart the Jen-Diki. They don't get any help from McCarthy (Tim Robertson), who seems to have graduated summa cum laude from the Brian Dennehy Academy of Small-Town Asshole Sheriffs, tossing Ballard and Annie in the slammer and messing around with their futuristic armbands, after which, of course, the Jen-Diki figure out exactly where Ballard is and launch a full-scale invasion of this small outback town, starting with the police station in a sequence that's in no way modeled on a similar one in THE TERMINATOR. Ultimately, despite some good ideas (I liked the notion of the time-traveling city), THE TIME GUARDIAN is just too confusing, too dull, and too derivative of other, better movies (THE TERMINATOR, BLADE RUNNER, STAR TREK, and the whole subplot with the dumbass, bullying sheriff is straight out of FIRST BLOOD), and Burlinson, fine in the SNOWY RIVER films and PHAR LAP, overdoes it and isn't a very convincing jaw-clenched badass of the Schwarzenegger mold. The material is there, but judging from the apparently troubled production history, this one just feels like it got away from everyone involved. Also featuring the maudlin closing credits tune "This Time I Know" by Rose Tattoo frontman Angry Anderson. (PG, 88 mins)
