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 grim rural Alabama indie noir INTO THE ASHES seems to have all the ingredients for a compelling story that's heavy on the bleak hopelessness, but it just never quite manages to get its shit together and become the next BLUE RUIN or BAD TURN WORSE. Nick Brenner (YELLOWSTONE's Luke Grimes) lives a quiet life doing repairs for a local furniture company, but his past is about to come back and bite him in the ass in the form of Sloan (Frank Grillo). Just paroled after serving a several-year stretch because Nick hung him out to dry, Sloan wants revenge, and he doesn't care that Nick has cleaned up his act and built a new life--including buying a home with Sloan's money--with Tara (Marguerite Moreau). Sloan and two associates, Charlie (David Cade) and Bruce (Scott Peat), with the help of a sleazy private eye who learns the hard way that he shouldn't gouge Sloan for more money, end up at Nick's house while he's away for the weekend working on restoring a boat with his buddy Sal (James Badge Dale). When Nick returns, he's greeted by Sloan and his crew, who inform him that they killed Tara before shooting him twice in the back and leaving him for dead. He wakes up handcuffed to a hospital bed under the steely glare of Sheriff Frank (Robert Taylor, taking his LONGMIRE act for another spin), who also happens to be his father-in-law and always knew he was no good. Nick manages to escape from custody when Frank leaves him with his idiot deputy (Brady Smith), and teams up with Sal to go after Sloan, Charlie, and Bruce.
It shouldn't take much to make something like INTO THE ASHES function as an engrossing thriller, but writer/director Aaron Harvey (best known for the dismal 2011 Tarantino knockoff CATCH .44, one of Bruce Willis' earliest forays into the world of straight-to-VOD) keeps the pace at a lugubrious crawl, and repeatedly errs in having significant events take place offscreen, only to have the characters talk about them after. That includes a late-film POV switch from Nick to Frank, who arrives on the scene of a motel shootout, sending him on a search for his son-in-law. Harvey eventually shows what happened in a later flashback, but by that point it doesn't matter, since we know who was killed and whatever minimal momentum was building has been completely quashed by a director trying to be stylish. Grillo (among the team of producers, along with his buddy Joe Carnahan) is an effective bad guy, but he's absent for long stretches, a tell-tale sign that they only had him for a few days. Grimes is sufficiently glum and dour but he remains a blank slate throughout, and only Taylor manages to create a genuinely interesting character, which Harvey of course diminishes by giving him pretentious voiceovers referencing religious parables about Samson in reference to Nick. INTO THE ASHES would've been a lot better if it just told a straightforward story instead of incessantly stalling itself and fumbling around with Creative Writing 101-level subtext in an attempt to be "deep." (Unrated, 97 mins)
COLD BLOOD (France/Ukraine - 2019)
A thriller so blandly by-the-numbers that it actually fades from your memory while you're watching it, COLD BLOOD could almost qualify as Luc Besson fan fiction on the part of debuting director Frederic Petitjean, right down to the hiring of cinematographer Thierry Arbogast, a frequent Besson collaborator going back to 1990's LA FEMME NIKITA. But the real Besson worship is evidenced by the presence of Jean Reno in what amounts to an alternate universe incarnation of his Leon character from Besson's 1994 favorite THE PROFESSIONAL, only here he's called Henry. The film opens in the snowy nowhere of the Pacific Northwest wilderness, where Melody (Sarah Lind) crashes her snowmobile. Bleeding and unconscious, she's found and nursed back to health by Henry, who lives in quiet solitude in a cabin on the lake. Flashbacks reveal Henry is actually a hit man in hiding after whacking a billionaire CEO (Jean-Luc Olivier) in NYC ten months earlier. The CEO was actually born in the nearest town in Washington state and chose to be buried there (of all the places for Henry to hide), which prompts irate local detective Kappa (BACKDRAFT 2's Joe Anderson) to investigate the murder himself. Other characters exist on the fringe, like an assassin (David Gyasi) hired by the CEO's sinister chief aide (Francois Guetary) and a "surprise" involving Melody that will only surprise you if COLD BLOOD is the first movie you've ever seen.
A French-Ukrainian co-production shot in Kiev, COLD BLOOD never quite looks or feels "American," starting with most of the Ukrainian supporting cast being unconvincingly dubbed. But there's also a ton of awkward, stilted dialogue like Kappa's wizened old partner Davies (Ihor Ciszkewycz) asking him why he transferred from NYC to the middle of nowhere and being told, in a way that suggests a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma that's covered in pretentious bullshit, "Maybe I wanted to get lost." Or a head-scratcher of an exchange that actually sounds like Petitjean fishing for a distribution deal, where Davies asks Kappa "They got Netflix in New York?" and Kappa glowers "You see the things I see in New York City, you won't need Netflix." Or a floridly overwritten scene between Kappa and the CEO's estranged, dementia-stricken ex-wife (DOWNTON ABBEY's Samantha Bond, also Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan-era 007 films), who's prone to surprisingly verbose purple prose and mellifluous exposition dumps for someone who can't remember a damn thing. For his part, Reno is Reno. At first, it's nice to see him in lethal assassin mode again, but he looks tired and bored, and after watching COLD BLOOD, one could hardly blame him. (R, 91 mins)
"Turgid" and "overwrought" don't begin to describe this oppressive, self-indulgent fiasco from director Sean Penn. Filmed in 2014 and laughed off the screen when it was in competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, THE LAST FACE was shelved for another year before getting an unceremonious premiere on DirecTV and then expanding to VOD the same weekend that star Charlize Theron's ATOMIC BLONDE opened. A heavy-handed "message" film that makes you appreciate the comparative subtlety of Steven Seagal's climactic lecture in the 1994 eco-actioner ON DEADLY GROUND, THE LAST FACE tries to address the atrocities in war-torn areas of the world like Liberia, South Sudan, and Sierra Leone, but quickly relegates those concerns to the background to center on the torrid on-again/off-again romance between activist/doctor Wren Peterson (Theron) and Spanish playboy surgeon Miguel Leon (Javier Bardem). Dedicated to helping refugees through an aid organization set up by her late father--from whose shadow she can't seem to escape even though no one's trying to keep her there--Wren insists she doesn't need a man to complete her, then can't stop delivering anguished, Terrence Malick-inspired narration like "Before I met him, I was an idea I had." Wren's and Miguel's relationship has its ups and downs, as evidenced by three separate scenes of Wren yelling "You don't even know me!" and one where she even adds "Being inside me isn't knowing me!" Penn presents their initial, hesitant hooking up with all the grace and restraint of a daytime soap, trapping two Oscar-winning actors in the most unplayable roles of their careers. It's hard to give THE LAST FACE a chance when it opens with onscreen text that's an incoherent word salad about "the brutality of corrupted innocence" and how it ties into "the brutality of an impossible love..." (fade to black) "...shared by a man..." (fade to black) "...and a woman." Spicoli, please!
THE LAST FACE began life as a project for Penn's ex-wife Robin Wright. It was written by her close friend Erin Dignam, but when Penn's and Wright's marriage ended, Penn hung on to the script and pressed forward several years later with his then-girlfriend Theron. There's no shortage of camera adoration of Theron throughout, with Penn veering into Tarantino territory with shots of Theron's toes picking up a pencil before Bardem slithers across the floor to kiss her feet. Their relationship is consummated with a "cute" scene of making faces while they brush their teeth, and for some reason, songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers figure into the plot, with a sweaty sex scene set to "Otherside" and an earlier bit where a helicopter pilot (Penn's son Hopper Jack Penn) can't shut up about the band. There's so much RHCP love here that it wouldn't be a surprise if Flea showed up as a spazzing doctor with a sock on his dick. BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR's Adele Exarchopoulos has an underwritten role as Wren's cousin and brief Miguel love interest, and reliable character actors like Jared Harris and Jean Reno disappear into the background as other doctors (Reno's character is named "Dr. Love" but he doesn't have the cure you're thinkin' of). Penn's intent may be earnest, but when he isn't haranguing the audience about how they need to pay more attention to what's going on in the world, he's sidelining what he wants you to focus on by turning the entire film into what looks like the world's most tone-deaf Harlequin romance adaptation. Penn has made some intelligent and challenging films as a director--1991's THE INDIAN RUNNER, 1995's THE CROSSING GUARD, 2001's THE PLEDGE, and 2007's INTO THE WILD--but THE LAST FACE is catastrophic less than a minute in and insufferable for the next 130. (R, 131 mins)
SECURITY (US - 2017)
A perfunctory, go-through-the-motions clock-punch for everyone involved, SECURITY is an instantly forgettable time-killer that probably would've played better 20-25 years ago as a Joel Silver production with the same two lead actors, someone like Peter Hyams or Renny Harlin directing, and several million additional dollars in the budget. Consider it DIE HARD IN A MALL or ASSAULT ON FOOD COURT 13, or maybe even JOHN CARPENTER'S PAUL BLART: MALL COP, but any way you slice it, the biggest takeaway from SECURITY is how hilariously inept it is at trying to pass off three bizarrely-dressed soundstages at Bulgaria's Nu Boyana Studios as a suburban American shopping mall. There's about five or six storefronts with very little in the way of merchandise, a clothing store called "Luxury Fashion," randomly placed American flags, a stairway that leads to a wall, some plants, and letters on another wall spelling "M A L L," as if shoppers don't know where they are, plus the building used for the exterior looks like an abandoned factory. But even before the action moves to the mall, the Bulgarian ruse is up when a convoy of US Marshals assemble to move a witness to safety and all are in jackets and bulletproof vests reading "U.S.A. Marshals," which looks and sounds exactly like a task left to an Eastern European prop crew with a shaky grasp of English and no one following up on the work they did before the cameras started rolling. SECURITY was produced by Millennium Films, Avi Lerner's Cannon cover band, and they regularly pass off Bulgarian sets and locations as American, and while it's usually only noticeable if you're looking for it, it's rarely been as sloppily-executed as it is here. It's as unconvincing as the Millennium-produced 2009 remake of IT'S ALIVE, shot in Bulgaria but set in New Mexico, with the interiors of the lead character's house looking like the locally-hired carpenters came up with the layout and architectural design by doing a Google image search for Chi-Chi's.
Eddie Deacon (Antonio Banderas) is a former Special Forces captain suffering from PTSD after three deployments to Afghanistan. Separated from his wife and daughter and desperate for employment, he takes a job as an overnight security guard at a dilapidated mall in the outskirts of a city that's fallen prey to economic downturns and meth labs. Immediately after meeting his cocky, dudebro boss Vance (Liam McIntyre of Starz' SPARTACUS series) and his three other co-workers--how can this rundown mall afford five overnight guards seven nights a week?--ten-year-old Jamie (Katherine Mary de la Rocha) is pounding on one of the entrances, begging to be let in. She was the cargo in the "U.S.A. Marshals" transport, set to testify against the high-powered crime organization that employed her informant father before killing him and her mother, murders that she witnessed. The criminals, led by a man who calls himself "Charlie" (Ben Kingsley) but whose name may as well be Hans Gruber, then spend the rest of the night trying to get into the mall to get Jamie, which requires taking out the security crew, now led by the take-charge Eddie, who of course, views protecting Jamie as his shot at redemption and proof that he's capable of taking care of his own daughter. Director Alain Desrochers employs a few clever touches--like Jamie chasing some of Charlie's goons with a remote control car and the security team communicating via pink, toy walkies--but the whole production is just too chintzy-looking for its own good, looking very nearly as cheap as a Bratislava-shot Albert Pyun rapsploitation trilogy. 57-year-old Banderas is still in great shape and could easily handle the transition into the 60-and-over action star field that Liam Neeson has owned for several years, but he looks bored. Kingsley brings a little class just by being Ben Kingsley, but even he can't do much with a one-dimensional villain who, at one point, stands outside a barricaded door and purrs "...and I'll huff...and I'll puff..." In the requisite Alexander Godunov henchman role, Cung Le glowers and grimaces as someone named "Dead Eyes," and you'll also get some bonus shitty CGI explosions courtesy of Lerner's usual Bulgarian clown crew at Worldwide FX. SECURITY is hardly the worst of its type and is a perfectly acceptable way to kill 90 minutes if you're bored and you find it streaming, but any effort you exert to see it would still be more than the production design team put in to make those sets look like an actual, functioning mall. (R, 92 mins)
