Let’s see how long this Spike Lee “comeback” can last.
The “BlacKkKlansman” director had a solid outing with the aforementioned movie last year, which was deemed a comeback of sorts after a rough 10-year stretch of films that included “Miracle at St. Anna,” “Red Hook Summer,” “Oldboy,” “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” and, to a lesser extent, “Chiraq.” Those were the five worst Lee movies of his career (as far as I’m concerned).
And this is coming from an unadorned fan of his. Lee could practically do nothing wrong in my books between his 1986 debut “She’s Gotta Have It” all the way to 2006’s heist flick, “Inside Man” (let’s pretend 2004’s misbegotten “She Hate Me” doesn’t exist). The Lee filmography speaks for itself, really: “Do the Right Thing,” “Jungle Fever,” “Malcolm X,” “The 25th Hour,” “Summer of Sam,” and his most vastly underrated movie, which, quite curiously, is the most pertinently relevant film for 2019, “Bamboozled.”
With all that being said I am being told that the Oscar-nominated director’s next movie, the Netflix-produced “Da 5 Bloods,” was test-screened on November 25th in Brooklyn. An East Coast critic went to it and was absolutely floored by it. He sent me this short review:
It’s slick. A fast-paced 165-minute Vietnam war film. It’s not your typical type of war flick though. It’s a bunch of aging veterans returning to Ho Chi Minh City in present day. The reason they’re there is because the “5th Blood” (played by Chadwick Boseman only in flashbacks) was murdered in action. They’re returning to find his body, dog tag, but also millions of dollars worth of Gold that they buried all the way back in Vietnam. So they voyage off into the jungle and reconnect with one another. It’s not comparable in quality or even scope, but there’s a sort of Last Flag Flying sense of bonding between these men all leaving different lives from when they knew each other. It follows a similar approach in its political commentary as his last film, he opens with a montage of the violence of the late 60s/70s set to Marvin Gaye — there’s a lot of Marvin Gaye in this, and he uses it so well, all fitting in smoothly and establishing a rhythmic momentum from the start. I saw with two other critics, and they both loved. It’s a strong work and it’s apparent Netflix gave him creative control to create his vision.
Does this mean we can potentially expect “Da 5 Bloods” to world premiere at Sundance this coming January? I contacted my source at Netflix and they were really holding out hope for a Cannes premiere but said Sundance is “not out of the question” right now. When asked about a festival premiere, the East Coast critic had this to say:
I think “Da 5 Bloods” will be a major success for both Spike and Netflix and could even see a directing and picture nomination depending on how they decide to release. The movie was practically finished — just some small things like explosions that were just a tad too loud and needed to be mixed a little bit, but nothing that major. Yeah, 160-165 minutes is the runtime considering that the credits are already finished and in place. I’m so perplexed as to what festival this would go to because it feels to big for Sundance, has Spike ever done Berlin ?, lol it’s not like he’s gonna doing SXSW, can’t do Cannes because of Netflix (I’d have said Cannes opening night if it was a possibility), and then that takes us to Telluride/Venice/TIFF, and if they wanted to wait that long, I honestly think they’d have some considerable success at an awards campaign.
This would, at first, seem like an odd statement from Netflix, given that Cannes has banned their movies these last two years, but maybe an agreement/deal is trying to be negotiated, who knows. Sundance is supposed to announce its lineup, according to same source, tomorrow.
“Da 5 Bloods” circles around a group of Vietnam veterans who return to southeast Asia to find who they were before the war. Chadwick Boseman leads the starry cast which also includes Delroy Lindo and Jean Reno.