A bungled cocktail of messages

Rating: 2/10 (13 June 2020)

A marketing executive once told me "Advertising is like an arrow. The sharper the message, the better it sticks in the target." By that logic, "Da 5 Bloods" is like throwing the quiver and hoping you hit something.
My first reaction after viewing Da 5 Bloods was it's important to separate the film from the message(s). A movie that attempts to explore the racial inequities of the Viet Nam war, the effect on friendships of worshiping gold, the importance of family, the merits (or lack) of the Trump administration -- what did I miss? -- is unlikely to do a good job on any of them.
Unlike "The Green Book" or "Blackkklansman," which present narratives on racism effectively through well-crafted films, Da 5 Bloods is a heavy-handed, often preachy and disjointed commercial that self-dilutes the impact of what it tries to say. The end scenes of various organizations receiving huge gold-fueled donations includes Black Lives Matter, which seems to be presented as an afterthought. The story is predictable, and plays out like it was written for a high school literature class the night before it was due. All this is before even considering scenes, characters, and situations that qualify as goofs, anachronisms, and "couldn't possibly happen that way.".
Da 5 Bloods goes a step beyond the old cliche about killing the messenger for the message, and lets the messenger mangle the message himself. I expected a better film from Spike Lee.