Da 5 Bloods: A powerful statement

Da 5 Bloods (2020) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong violence, grisly images and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.26.20

Movie serendipity can be spooky at times.

Back in the spring of 1979, The China Syndrome hit theaters just 12 days prior to Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island almost-a-catastrophe.

Sheer chance has brought them to the right spot: As David (Jonathan Majors, far right)
watches quietly, his companions — from left, Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), Eddie
(Norm Lewis), Paul (Delroy Lindo) and Otis (Clarke Peters) — find evidence of their
long-ago fallen comrade.

And now, director Spike Lee’s savagely compelling new drama, Da 5 Bloods, debuted on Netflix June 12, not quite three weeks after the callous murder of George Floyd ignited a justifiably enraged movement that shows no sign of slowing. Lee’s message couldn’t be more timely.

His film warrants such enhanced attention. And then some.

Da 5 Bloods — co-scripted by Lee, Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo and Kevin Willmott — finds the reliably passionate filmmaker once again in the infuriated mode that characterized his early career. This isn’t a slyly sarcastic (and fact-based) jab at racist buffoons akin to 2018’s BlacKkKlansman; Da 5 Bloods is a bleak, intensely angry rage-against-the-man diatribe, with a slice of magic realism.

And, yes, a few winks and nods to classic Hollywood. Let’s call it a Vietnam parable by way of 1948’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The setting and character dynamics may be different, but the message is identical: Greed destroys.

African-American Vietnam veterans Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis) and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) haven’t been too successful, since returning to the world. They’re broken men, beaten down by grief, illness, addiction, financial ruin and divorce. And by regret and shame, knowing that — decades earlier — they were forced to abandon their fallen squad leader, known as Stormin’ Norman.

Haunted ever since by this failure (“Leave no man behind!”), they’ve returned to Vietnam, determined to find, and bring home, their former comrade’s remains.

As it happens, though, their motives aren’t entirely pure. Back in the day — shortly before Norman’s death — the squad was tasked by the CIA to deliver a chest of gold bars to the indigenous Vietnamese who were helping the American war effort. But Norman — passionate about his own people, back home — proposed they bury the gold until they could later reclaim it for the benefit of their own communities.

1917: Absolutely amazing!

1917 (2019) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated R, for considerable war violence, dramatic intensity and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.10.20

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

Having made it through the harrowing horrors of No Man's Land, Lance Cpl. Schofield
(George MacKay, left) and Lance Cpl. Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) marvel at the
artillery weapons and shells that have been abandoned on the German side of the front.

Director/co-writer Sam Mendes’ war drama isn’t merely a crackling suspenser that’ll keep you at the edge of your seat — hand at mouth — for every single moment of its 119-minute run.

It’s also one of the most visually audacious films ever made: a degree of stunning cinematic technical advancement on par with the dinosaurs that knocked our socks off, back in 1993’s Jurassic Park.

Everything you’ve heard about Mendes’ film is true; it’s that awesome.

The simple, pressure-cooker plot begins on April 6, 1917, deep within the Allied trenches in Northern France. The “Great War” has been raging since late July 1914, and will continue until November 1918; American forces have yet to arrive in Western Europe (although the United States officially declared war on Germany on this very day).

German forces have unexpectedly pulled back overnight, encouraging the Allies to mount an offensive and follow. But aerial photos have revealed this to be a ruse; the Germans have feigned this retreat to the Hindenburg Line, in order to ambush the pursuing Devonshire Regiment’s 1,600-man 2nd Battalion. 

Processing this from miles away, the 8th Battalion’s Gen. Erinmore (Colin Firth, in a brief appearance) realizes the result will be a slaughter. Phone lines are down; the only hope is to send messengers — on foot — through No Man’s Land and past the original German front, in order to alert the 2nd Battalion’s commanding officer, and call off the Allied attack … which is scheduled for the very next morning.

The mission falls to two young soldiers: Lance Cpl. Schofield (George MacKay, well remembered as the beleaguered eldest son in 2016’s Captain Fantastic) and Lance Cpl. Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman, a frequent face on HBO’s Game of Thrones). They have less than 24 hours to cover many dangerous miles.

Blake has an additional incentive: His older brother Joseph is a member of the 2nd Battalion.

Thank You for Your Service: Gratefully sincere

Thank You for Your Service (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for strong violent content, relentless profanity, sensuality, drug use and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.27.17

Some true-life stories wait patiently for big-screen exposure.

Others beg for attention. Repeatedly.

At first, being home is a happy relief for, from left, Solo (Beulah Koale), Will (Joe Cole)
and Adam (Miles Teller). Sadly, all three soon will fall prey to mounting anxiety and
other forms of severe psychological distress.

Hollywood long has addressed the challenges faced by returning military veterans, starting with 1946’s deeply moving The Best Years of Our Lives, an Academy Award-winning Best Picture made immediately in the wake of World War II. Since then, each war — and every generation — have been acknowledged by similarly earnest dramas: Coming Home, Gardens of Stone, Born on the Fourth of July, In the Valley of Elah and many others.

To that cinematic honor role we now add Thank You for Your Service, director/scripter Jason Hall’s heartfelt adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalist David Finkel’s 2013 nonfiction book of the same title.

Hall’s approach is straightforward and bereft of typical war-film flash. The story has no nail-biting tension, in the manner of The Hurt Locker and Dunkirk, nor is this a senses-assaulting bloodbath akin to Saving Private Ryan and Hacksaw Ridge. The brief combat sequences linger just long enough to make their point. Such choices are consistent with Hall’s desire to tell an uncomplicated story about regular guys who struggle to regain their souls, after leaving Iraq behind.

The story, set in 2008, focuses on three members of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad, as they muster out and return to their Stateside lives in and around Topeka, Kan.

Sgt. Adam Schumann (Miles Teller), an instinctive “bomb sniffer,” has completed his third deployment and — honoring a promise to his wife Saskia (Haley Bennett) —agrees to stay home this time. Tausolo “Solo” Aeiti (Beulah Koale), in contrast, can’t wait to re-up ... much to the consternation of his wife, Alea (Keisha Castle-Hughes).

Will Waller (Joe Cole) has been counting the days until he can rejoin and marry his fiancée, Tracey (Erin Darke).

Schumann and Aeiti are actual individuals who figured prominently in Finkel’s book. Waller is a construct, inserted to convey one of the many other “homeward bound” sagas that Finkel gleaned during his extensive research and numerous interviews.

Hacksaw Ridge: A cut above

Hacksaw Ridge (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for graphic war action, gore and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.4.16

Factual war dramas often are remembered for seminal sequences: the badly outnumbered British soldiers at Rorke’s Drift, who withstood the final onslaught by native warriors, in 1964’s Zulu; George C. Scott’s electrifying opening speech, in 1970’s Patton; and the Omaha Beach assault that kicked off 1998’s Saving Private Ryan, to name a few.

Once word spreads that Desmond (Andrew Garfield, right) refuses to wield or even touch
a weapon, Smitty (Luke Bracey, left) is the first to register contempt and hostility: How can
he — or anybody else in their division — trust a man who smacks of cowardice?

Indeed, the latter set a new bar for gripping, ghastly, battlefield intensity.

Until now.

Director Mel Gibson’s impressive Hacksaw Ridge is another reminder that, even with a long string of inspiring World War II dramas stretching back to the 1940s, fresh stories remain to be told. The best are those able to personalize the ordeal, by focusing on a few unforgettable individuals, or perhaps just one.

Hacksaw Ridge is the first dramatic depiction of American Army medic Desmond T. Doss’ experiences in the war: specifically his actions with the 77th Division — dubbed the “Statue of Liberty Division” — when it was ordered to take the Maeda Escarpment on Okinawa, as part of the Allied push to mainland Japan.

Frankly, I can’t understand what took Hollywood so long; Doss’ story screams for big-screen treatment.

Scripters Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan didn’t even have a mainstream biography on which to base their film treatment (although an obscure small-press book — Booton Herndon’s Unlikeliest Hero — was published in 1982). They were able to draw from Terry Benedict’s award-winning 2004 documentary, The Conscientious Objector. That title cuts to the core of Doss’ unique status: He was the only American soldier in World War II to fight on the front lines without a weapon.

As a Seventh-Day Adventist, Doss believed strongly that killing was against God’s Sixth Commandment. But he also insisted on serving his country in a meaningful way —obtaining a deferment, due to his employment at a naval shipyard, seemed cowardly — and therefore viewed a role in the army medical corps as a logical compromise.

It wasn’t to be that simple.

Gibson opens with a brief flash-forward to the chaos on Okinawa — a pointless foreshadowing of the carnage to come — and then takes us back to Desmond’s youth and young adulthood. He came of age in a household terrorized by his alcoholic father, Tom (Hugo Weaving): a man unable to forgive himself for surviving his WWI service, when so many of his friends and fellow soldiers died. Weaving makes Tom a forlorn and unstable — even dangerous — wreck, but not an entirely unsympathetic monster. In fact, Tom gets his shot at redemption, later in the story.

A couple of seminal events harden Desmond’s decision never to wield a gun, or take a life by any other means. We don’t doubt his resolve.

Anthropoid: Grim, fact-based war drama

Anthropoid (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Terrible title, taut thriller.

And historical authenticity doesn’t necessarily justify the choice. Nor does historical authenticity conceal another issue.

Having parachuted into Czechoslovakia only the night before, Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan,
left) and Josef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy) steal a truck in order to reach Prague, where they are to
link up with resistance fighters

To cite another recent example ... despite the care with which 2000’s The Perfect Storm was assembled, I couldn’t overcome the core paradox:

Sebastian Junger’s book — and, thus, William D. Wittliff’s screenplay — were based on an actual event that left no survivors. Ergo, everything we watched was no more than an educated presumption of what actually happened: a narrative conceit that can’t help pulling us out of the story at every significant juncture.

This is never a problem with dramatic fiction, which allows us to simply go with the flow; we accept the saga on its own merits. But no matter how persuasively George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg delivered their dialogue — no matter how heroically they behaved — it was impossible to accept things at face value. Were the men in question really that brave? Actually that selfless?

Similar questions emerge during the course of Anthropoid, director Sean Ellis’ often gripping account of a World War II incident that forever changed the fate of Czechoslovakia, and quite likely altered the direction of the entire war. Ellis and co-writer Anthony Frewin have developed their script from what is known about “Operation Anthropoid,” and while the clandestine mission’s preparation and outcome are the stuff of recorded history, much of this storyline can’t be any better than speculation.

Whether that’s vexing enough to be an issue, will be up to the individual viewer. It’s easy to imagine that things may have gone down this way, and that might be sufficient. Ellis certainly draws persuasive performances from most of his cast — with one unfortunate exception — and there’s no denying the suspenseful nobility inherent in WWII resistance fighters who risked everything to thwart Nazi advances.

The film begins in December 1941, three years after the Allies’ notorious “Munich Agreement”: the act of appeasement that passively allowed Hitler to take over Czechoslovakia without a shot being fired. Two soldiers from the London-based Czechoslovakian army-in-exile — Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan) and Josef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy) — parachute back into their occupied homeland, and carefully make their way to the few individuals who remain in the underground resistance.