LOST BULLET : Thursday 25th June 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Lost Bullet' which went live on the streaming service on 19th June and which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Thursday 25th June.

'LOST BULLET' is an original French Netflix production Directed and Co-Written by Guillaume Pierret in his feature film making debut following a number of outings Directing French TV shows and his breakout nine minute short film 'Matriarche' in 2012. This film is spoken in French with English subtitles, runs for a brisk 93 minutes and has garnered generally favourable Reviews so far.

Opening up with Lino (Alban Lenoir) clearly a whizz at all things auto mechanical, as he is seen welding steel bars into the engine bay of a Renault Clio and then firing up the supercharged engine which sits mounted where the rear passengers would normally be seated. He drives the car round the block late at night stopping briefly to pick up his good friend Quentin (Rod Paradot) before passing a jewellery store that he has every intention of ram raiding. The pair buckle up their reinforced seat belts, put on crash helmets, and line up the vehicle. As Lino accelerates towards the shop front, he flicks a switch which gives him an extra 300 horsepower and the Clio charges full tilt through the jewellery shop window, and out through the concrete wall at the back, and then through another concrete wall, then another, and then another before coming to rest outside in the street, with Clio sized holes visible though all four buildings in the block. As Police sirens ring out, Lino's seat belt is jammed and he is unable to get free to make a run for it, but orders Quentin to leg it, which he does. Needless to say, Lino is arrested and thrown in prison.

Next up we cut to a chase down a highway involving a souped up reinforced Police pursuit vehicle and an equally souped up BMW driven by some drug runners. Weaving in and out of trucks and other vehicles, the Police pursuit vehicle is in radio contact with another similar Police car coming in the opposite direction. The second Police car rams headlong into the oncoming BMW totally wiping out both vehicles. The occupants of the BMW are dead at the scene, but the two cops get out unscathed thanks to their heavily reinforced pursuit vehicle. Job done, stash of drugs recovered and no-one is too perturbed about the pair of very dead low life crims.

We then fast track a few months, and Lino is visited in prison by the chief of a special drug unit Charas (Ramzy Bedia) who recognising his potential offers him a deal to work as a Police mechanic in his specialised 'go fast' unit, on a prison day release scheme. After about nine months on the job, in which time Lino has integrated himself well into the four man unit by pimping up the Police pursuit cars so they can outrun the 'go fast' criminals vehicles along the French motorways, Charas offers him an early release deal.

However, Lino's plans for an early release go somewhat awry when Charas is shot and killed by a member of his own unit, Areski (Nicolas Duvauchelle), witnessed by his colleague Marco (Sebastien Lalanne) who are both running their own nefarious criminal business on the side with underworld characters Jacques (Patrick Medioni) and Kad (Arthur Aspturian), using Quentin to help them pimp their own vehicles. Areski shoots Charas through the back window of his car, with the bullet piercing the drivers seat, Charas back, exiting though his chest and coming to rest embedded in the instrument panel of the dash board. Meanwhile, Lino has made  a run for it. Areski orders Jacques and Kad to torch the car, and with it Charas' body.

Needless to say Lino is framed for the murder of Charas. Arriving at a petrol station with gun in hand to call Julia (Stefi Celma) - the fourth member of the unit, he is promptly arrested and taken in for questioning. Areski enters the interview room where Lino is handcuffed to the table, and offers him a story with which to get him off the hook in exchange for his silence. Lino declines the offer, and after some handiwork involving an aluminium chair he is able to prize himself free. What follows is an intense hand to hand close quarter combat sequence that sees Lino fend off a dozen or so hefty Police Officers as he seeks to escape from custody and to prove his innocence. He dispenses with the dozen or so cops using chairs, tables, laptop computers, punches, kicks and a can of capsicum spray before exiting the cop shop badly battered and bruised, but having come out on top nonetheless, despite the overwhelming odds.

He catches up with Julia at the garage where the Go Fast unit is also based and tries to explain his innocence in the whole sorry affair. Julia has taken Charas' death particularly hard as they rode together and she was seen as his natural successor. It also seems that Lino and Julia had a thing for each other in the recent past. While they are talking the burnt out remains of Charas' vehicle is brought into the garage on a tow truck. Lino and Julia get into a fight, which ultimately sees Julia handcuffed to the bumper of a car as Lino limps away gasping for air. Before leaving however, he looks under the burnt out remains of the vehicle and says 'that's not Charas' car!'

So Lino goes back to the scrapyard of Jacques and Kad in search of Charas's car, but is sprung by the pair and held at gunpoint. With some quick thinking by Quentin, he and Lino are able to disable the pair and lock them inside the boot of a car, only to be uncovered later by Areski and Marco, who out of frustration for their failings in apprehending Lino, kill the pair and pin their murder on Lino and Quentin.

Meanwhile, Lino recontacts Julia hoping to get a more welcoming reception this time around, and a little understanding. This time she listens but still remains unconvinced that Areski and Marco are at the centre of the misdeeds. However, she goes along with his story for the time being. He tells her to meet him at the place they first met, and in driving there Quentin tells Lino that he knows where Charas' car is hidden away. They rendezvous and Quentin explains to Julia all the events that went down that had led them to this point. Julia is now more convinced, and in leaving they realise they had been followed by a couple of suspicious looking characters. Managing to evade them, Julia returns to her garage HQ and Lino and Quentin make for an abandoned farmstead out in the country where Charas' car is stashed. This is Lino's only hope of proving his innocence, by reclaiming the bullet in the instrument panel of the dashboard - the lost bullet - and ensuring it is handed over to the real authorities before Areski and Marco get to him first.

At the abandoned farmhouse, Quentin and Lino sneak around, not realising that Marco has stealthily rocked up having also been given the location of Charas' vehicle by Kad whom he beat to death with the butt end of his rifle earlier. In an unguarded moment Marco shoots Quentin in the chest. Hearing the shot ring out, Lino takes cover in the kitchen but is drawn out by Marco. A fist fight ensues, in which Lino eventually overpowers Marco and handcuffs him securely to a fixture inside the farm house, but not before firing off a around into his bullet proof vest which has incapacitated him. Quentin meanwhile has struggled to drag himself over to the wheel of a tractor, propped himself up against it, and died with a winch in his hand. Seeing this, Lino realises that the winch leads to a mound of mulch under which is concealed Charas' vehicle. With the keys still in the ignition, he fires up the engine - it starts first time. He drives the car into the barn, where lo and behold, there is a full welding kit with which Lino is able to reinforce the front end with a rather nifty pair of very large and very menacing looking hooks. He also tinkers about with the engine to extract just a little more grunt out of it's turbo engine.

The next morning Areski has set up a road block on the look out for Charas' old car, with a couple of Police pursuit vehicles on patrol in the vicinity. The Police car spots Lino and gives chase. As the Police vehicle overtakes Lino's, he manoeuvres his vehicle into position, accelerates and hooks on to the back end of the Police car. With the rear axle disabled, Lino is pushing the Police car along at full speed headed directly for the road block, which he ploughs through easily, with the full protection of the Police car in front. He rams through several other vehicles sending them flying.

Areski now has no concern other to dispense with Lino and Charas' car as quickly as possible. Giving chase, the pair of cars weave down narrow French streets, other vehicles in the way get trashed, and eventually Julia joins the chase in another vehicle having realised that Lino must be telling the truth about Charas' car. Areski tries to ram Lino off the road, while Julia broadsides Lino on the other side effectively sandwiching him in the middle. With nowhere to go, Areski's car is sent tumbling end over end and lands on its side, a crumpled mess. Julia's car hits a lamppost, and Lino's comes to rest a short distance away.

Areski crawls out of the car as Lino sets upon him beating him senseless and bloody as Areski releases a grenade into Charas' car. It explodes and the back end is engulfed in flames. Lino jumps in and drives at a furious pace towards the garage as flames begin to engulf more of the vehicle. He tears into the garage and drives the car headlong into the back wall as he is thrown through the windscreen when the vehicle comes to an abrupt halt. At the garage another mechanic and Moss (Pascale Arbillot) the superior officer handling the unit since Charas' demise douse the flames with fire extinguishers.

Later we see forensics extracting the bullet from the dashboard of Charas' car and examining it, and its trajectory. We then see Moss hading over a document to Julia to give to Lino absolving him of any guilt, he is now a free man. Julia walks Lino out of the garage with her arm around him. They turn around to take a last glance at Charas' burned out car, adorned with wreaths and floral tributes. Areski meanwhile sneaks into his house where his wife is playing with their young child in the garden. He goes to the bedroom, removes a secret panel from his closet and unloads a weapon and a stash of bank notes which he bundles into a holdall. He then leaves the house without saying goodbye, and presumably drives off into the sunset.

Don't be mislead by the title of this film into thinking this is just another by the numbers derivative cops and robbers offering, because there is more to this French action thriller than the title and the pitch would have you believe. Here former stuntman Alban Lenoir puts in a convincing turn as a cross between a Gallic Jason Statham and Vin Diesel replete with #1 haircut and five days of stubble and able to drive his way out of any car chase and punch, kick, maim and disable his way out of any fist fight with all manner of adversaries. The film proves that you can do a lot with relatively little, as the practical stunts, fight sequences, and the modest production values far outweigh the allegedly low cost of production. Whilst Lenoir is front and centre in this film as the antagonist turned protagonist, the remainder of the principle cast all put in worthwhile turns too dropping plenty of 'f' bombs and often drenched in blood, sweat and tears. Sure the plot is cliched enough, and stretches the imagination, but the action which is frenetic and frequent will keep you entertained, and for Lino it seems, the door is left wide open for a sequel or two, which the Producers have already hinted at. Well worth a look for lovers of fast and furious car-nage, fist fights, and one man on a mission to clear his name come hell or high water genre offerings.

'Lost Bullet' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online- 

WASP NETWORK : Sunday 21st June 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Wasp Network' which went live on the streaming service on 19th June and which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Sunday 21st June.

'WASP NETWORK' is Directed and written for the screen by Olivier Assayas, the French film maker whose previous credits include 2016's 'Personal Shopper' for which he collected the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, 2014's 'Clouds of Sils Maria' and 2010's 'Carlos' amongst others. Based on the 2011 book 'The Last Soldiers of the Cold War' written by Fernando Morais this is the  true story of the 'Cuban Five'. The film saw its World Premier screening at the Venice Film Festival in early September last year and thereafter at TIFF, the San Sebastien International Film Festival, the  New York Film Festival, and the BFI London Film Festival before its release in France in late January this year. Picked up by Netflix in January for distribution on its streaming service, the film has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far.

It is 1990, Havana, Cuba and we meet Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez), his wife Olga (Penelope Cruz) and their six year old daughter Irma (Carolina Peraza Matamoros). Rene works as a pilot of light aircraft taking parachute jumpers up to circa 13,000 feet and seeing them skydive back down to the ground. It's a living, but he longs for more. After his shift, he goes home to his loving family, and the next day wakes up to complete the same routine all over again. Saying farewell to Olga and Irma in the morning, he drives out to the airport, walks up to the air traffic control tower, sabotages the two way radios, and steals a plane and flies to Miami, Florida to begin a whole new life, leaving his family behind. Quizzed by authorities and the press as to the reason why he has defected, he gives a rational explanation of how he's had it with the authoritarian Castro regime and how Castro's days are numbered with the crippled Soviet Union funding drying up. He goes on to say that he was born in the US and therefore has citizenship, and soon is taken in by a group of Cuban exiles and opponents of the Castro regime and given three months of free accommodation and hooked up with some influential people who offer him a job as a pilot.

Flying for the 'Brothers to the Rescue' run out of Florida and headed up by Jose Basulto (Leonardo Sbaraglia) they operate against the Cuban regime by seeking to destabilise Cuba's tourist industry and operate through covert military means. They frequently breach Cuban airspace which they are warned against every time but are prepared to take the risk of military intervention, which never amounts to anything more than 'sabre rattling'. The 'Cuban American National Foundation' (CANF) also established in Florida and headed up by Jorge Mas Canosa (Omar Ali), together with Brothers to the Rescue drop propaganda leaflets over Havana, lead illegal boat immigrants from Cuba to Florida undetected by the US Coast Guard, drop off supplies to them en route, and also smuggle drugs and weapons in and out of the US. They also engaged in various terrorist activities co-ordinated by Luis Posada Carriles (Tony Plana).

Juan Pablo Roque (Wagner Moura), another Cuban pilot, also defects by swimming to Guantanamo Bay and seeks political asylum at the US Naval Base there. He is granted asylum and arrives in Miami, where shortly afterwards he is introduced to recently divorced Ana Martinez (Ana de Armas). He is also offered a job as a pilot flying for Brothers to the Rescue and CANF, and engaged in various nefarious deeds which pays him very well, as well as being a paid FBI Informer at US$1500 a week, but which he refuses to tell Ana the source of his money, and adds further that he doesn't tell her everything about him. She also asks why is he carrying around a cell phone (remembering that in the early '90's cellphones were only just emerging on the market), and he makes up some excuse to shield her from the truth. Despite such altercations and differences of opinion, they seemingly hit it off and soon enough are married in a very lavish wedding.

About half way through the film we first hear mention of the Wasp Network - a secret Cuban governmental organisation tasked with the highly confidential mission of infiltrating the Miami based paramilitary groups dedicated to reversing the damage inflicted by Fidel Castro's rule over Cuba. The Wasp Network is directed by Gerardo Hernandez aka Manuel Viramontez (Gael Garcia Bernal). As agents working for both sides, the members of the Wasp Network, the Cuban Five (Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez of which the latter three go unmentioned in this film) who had left Cuba and arrived in South Florida to great shakes as they voiced their opinions against the actions of the Cuban government, but back home, those families and friends of the five were placed in at times compromising and awkward positions and made outcasts because of their connection to the apparent traitors.

While the Wasp Network worked undercover, the American government continued its own investigation into the Cuban presence stateside. In February 1996, three Brothers to the Rescue Cessna light aircraft take off from Miami. Flying over Cuban airspace as they had done countless times in recent years, they receive a warning from the Cuban military that they are at risk. Choosing to ignore these warnings, this time two Cuban Air Force MiG fighter jets take down two of the aircraft carrying  a total four personnel. The third aircraft flown by Basulto escaped. The day before the shootdown Roque turns his back on his marriage to Ana and returns to Cuba stating publicly that he was a mole who worked to infiltrate anti-Castro organisations. When asked in a live TV interview what he misses most about his life in Miami he says his Jeep Cherokee, while Ana is watching him on screen from Florida - gobsmacked!

After a few years of cutting through lots of red tape and jumping through governmental hoops, Olga and Irma are finally permitted to leave Cuba and join Rene in Miami. Before doing so Viramontez meets with Olga and advises her that her husband is in fact no traitor, but more a hero. He confides in her that Rene is in fact a Cuban intelligence agent who successfully infiltrated CANF, and for the sake of herself, her husband and daughter, her family, friends, himself, the Cuban establishment and the Wasp Network she must maintain this secret to herself and not discuss it with anyone, under any circumstances. She agrees and leaves the office, and the next day is on a plane with Irma (now played by Osdeymi Pastrana Miranda) bound for Florida.

With the three reunited in Miami, it's not long before Olga finds steady work and Irma settles into school, and shortly thereafter Olga announces that she is pregnant with their second daughter, whom they intend calling Ivette. Meanwhile, in El Salvador, Raul Cruz Leon (Nolan Guerra Fernandez) in mid-1997 is recruited by anti-Castroists to place C4 bombs in four Havana hotels - The Copacabana, the Hotel Capri, the Hotel Nacional de Cuba and the Melia Cohiba Hotel with the aim of destabilising the recently resurgent Cuban tourist industry. Whilst the four bombs all successfully detonated in September 1997 there was only one fatality - that of an Italian tourist at the Copacabana and eleven other injuries. The very same day Leon is apprehended by the Cuban Police while exiting another hotel where he was due to collect his money for a job well done - money that he never saw! Thereafter the Wasp Network abandons Leon to his own fate. Carriles admitted to organising the bombings but was never prosecuted.

Finally, some months later by which time Olga has given birth to baby Ivette, the FBI closes in on the Wasp Network and arrests the whole network of agents including Rene Gonzalez and Manuel Viramontez. Combined they face charges of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, acting as an agent of a foreign government, drug and gun running and a few other US deemed illegal activities. In a TV interview Fidel Castro admits to his knowledge of Cuban intelligence agents operating on US soil.

While serving out his jail term, Rene is visited often by Olga. He is offered a plea deal by the FBI in exchange for information but refuses to inform on his colleagues and his government. He serves twelve years in prison and was released in late 2011. Olga was arrested and served three months in jail, before being reunited with her daughters and deported back to Cuba. Manuel Veramontez was sentenced to a double life sentence but was freed after fifteen years as part of a spy swap. Raul Cruz Leon is still serving a thirty year jail term for planting the four Havana bombs and Carriles died in 2018, aged 90. Juan Pablo Roque never flew again and had financial difficulties, while his estranged wife Ana sued the Cuban government for punitive damages amounting to US$27M, but has only ever received about US$200K.

I found 'Wasp Network' largely underwhelming which is a disappointment given the credibility and what we're used to from Writer and Director Assayas and his assembled all star cast consisting of Cruz, Ramirez, de Armas, Bernal and Moura. This is a muddled film where the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts, as its offers up too many plot contrivances and then leaves you hanging in mid-air without any closure as it ebbs and flows between too many characters, situations and locations to make for a coherent story. On the positive front, the production values are well realised with some stunning aerial photography of the corridor between US and Florida, shots of Havana from the air and the vibe of the early '90's are all captured thoughtfully. The principle cast especially Cruz as the initially abandoned then all forgiving and loyal dutiful wife, and Ramirez as the focused stoic double agent is so much better here than he was in 'The Last Days of American Crime' reviewed here just two weeks ago, give admirable performances, but the others are all undercooked. And despite all the sabre rattling, political intrigue and the ongoing strain of US/Cuban relations, Castro remained in power as President until 2008 and remained in office until 2011, which makes you wonder what was it all for anyway?

'Wasp Network' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

DA 5 BLOODS : Monday 15th June 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Da 5 Bloods' which went live on the streaming service on 12th June and which I saw from the comfort of my own home on Monday 15th June.

This latest Spike Lee Joint 'DA 5 BLOODS' comes from the acclaimed Director, who also Co-Produces and Co-Writes and was intended to be premiered out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival before the world was gripped by COVID-19. Instead of then being shown at a select number of theatres soon thereafter, Netflix aired it in mid-June, to largely universal critical acclaim and ranking at the No. 1 spot on the streaming service in its first weekend following release. The film cost in the vicinity of US$40M to make - making it one of Spike Lee's most expensive movies.

The film opens up with a montage of images showing civil unrest, police brutality throughout mostly the '60's and '70's with black activists (Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mohammed Ali) speaking out publicly about racial and cultural discrimination, the role of black soldiers in the Vietnam War and how during both WWII and the Vietnam War black American soldiers were fighting for their freedom. And yet they are still oppressed, still victimised, still discriminated against, still shackled by the white man, and far from free. We then open up to footage of a small squad of five black African American soldiers riding in a helicopter during the Vietnam War. There is the squad leader Norman 'Stormin' Norman' Holloway (Chadwick Boseman), Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and Eddie (Norm Lewis) who affectionally call themselves the 'Bloods'. Their helicopter, in a remote part of the jungle, comes under fire by the Viet Cong, who ultimately take down the chopper forcing it to crash land. A fierce fire fight ensues but the Bloods fend off the insurgents killing most of them, while those remaining flee.

Their reasons for being there was to secure a crash site for a downed CIA aeroplane and to recover its cargo of gold bullion intended as a means of payment to the locals for battling the Viet Cong. Sitting on the chest of US gold bars, Norman speaks to his fellow Bloods about the often inhuman treatment of African Americans at the hands of the US Government throughout history, and how this is their collective opportunity to help right some of those wrongs. And so they decide to bury the gold, and return at a not too distant time, to recover it. Subsequently, however, in another Viet Cong attack, Norman is killed and as a result of a US napalm attack on the area any distinguishing landmarks are obliterated rendering their future search practically useless.

We then fast forward almost fifty years to the current day, at Ho Chi Minh City, where we meet Paul, Otis, Melvin and Eddie as they check into their hotel. After renewing lifelong albeit distant relationships, the four go out eating, drinking and clubbing in a very different city to the one they remember the last time they were there serving in the US Army. The next day they hire Vinh (Johnny Tri Nguyen), a local guide who agrees to take them up river to an area where a recent landslide had uncovered the tail of a crashed plane. Armed with this information, they hope to recover the fallen and still missing body of Norman, and to reclaim their stash of gold in the process too.

Otis visits his former Vietnamese girlfriend Tien (Le Y Lan) who has seemingly carved out a successful export business for herself, and she points him in the direction of a Frenchman who may be interested in buying their gold, and helping them realise its monetary value so they can access the funds once they're home. His name is Desroche (Jean Reno). Otis also comes to learn over dinner with Tien, that her daughter Michon (Sandy Huong Pham) is in fact their daughter whom he never knew about. When Paul gets back to the hotel he also discovers that his son David (Jonathan Majors) has secretly followed him, putting more of a strain on their long standing fractured relationship. The Bloods agree, reluctantly, to allow David to join them in their quest, but he will not share in any of the spoils.

Having agreed to a deal with Desroche, the next day Vinh leads the Bloods and David up river to a drop off point. Passing the small river craft of a floating market Paul gets into a very heated argument with a local who tries to sell him a live chicken, and who seemingly won't take no for an answer. The argument quickly escalates out of control, with Paul having to be physically restrained by the others, before the local departs hurling various expletives back. Paul admits that he suffers from PTSD and frequently sees ghosts at night in his dreams. He also blames himself for Norman's death.

Resting up for the night at a riverside hotel, David gets in to a conversation with a French woman - Hedy Bouvier (Melanie Thierry) who four years ago founded an organisation to clear landmines and unexploded bombs from the countryside of Vietnam. She is there with her colleagues Seppo (Jasper Paakkonen) and Simon (Paul Walter Hauser) who both view the American with suspicion and disdain, although David flirts with Hedy.

Vinh drops off the Bloods and tells them that he'll meet them at a designated meeting spot in a few days, and if they're late, no worries, he'll wait for them. During the first night, sleeping out in the open under the stars, Melvin while searching for bug spray uncovers a pistol from Otis's backpack while he is sleeping, and hands it to Paul. The pistol was given to Otis by Tien, and waking Otis and asking him to explain, the group become suspicious of Tien's (and therefore Otis's) motives. Paul hangs on to the pistol. The next day, while taking a break, David walks down a hillside to take a crap. Armed with a toilet roll and a shovel, he begins digging a hole in the ground. His shovel connects with something metallic, and digging it up, reveals a gold bar. Armed with a metal detector, they locate the majority of the gold bars strewn across the hillside and buried just beneath the surface. Norm's body must be close by. When the metal detectors sets off another signal, Paul starts to dig and reveals a buried rifle, and then a set of dog tags still wrapped around the neck of its owner - Norman. The group kneel and pray together for their fallen squad leader.

On the hike out, with each man carrying a stash of gold bars in their back packs, they come to a clearing to rest up. The group start arguing over sharing of the gold with Paul now saying that David should have a fair share. Eddie attempts to quell the argument, and inadvertently steps on a landmine. Both his arms and legs have been blown clean off, and Otis, who is also a medic, rushes to his side, but he quickly bleeds out and is dead within a minute. In the ensuing melee, David steps on a landmine too, but it fails to trigger. At this point, Hedy, Seppo and Simon show up. Paul, hatches a plan to yank David off the landmine with a sudden jolt of a rope tied around his chest, a trick he had seen done successfully during his earlier wartime service. The rescue of David is successful and straightaway afterwards Paul pulls the gun on the three interlopers fearful they will call the authorities and report Eddie's death and their stash of gold bullion. David is forced to tie up Hedy, Seppo and Simon. During the night, Seppo escapes into the undergrowth, and the remaining Bloods confiscate the gun from Paul.

The group make it to the meeting point where Vinh is waiting. Within a short time two trucks drive up with armed gunmen, demanding that the group hand over the gold, which is rightfully theirs, in exchange for releasing Seppo whom they have captured overnight. A fire fight unfolds, and as Seppo flees he steps on a landmine is killed instantly, and David is shot in the leg and incapacitated. The Vietnamese insurgents are all killed off except for one who drives off in a truck to round up his mates and return. The group assume that Desroche has double crossed them, Otis suggests calling Tien for assistance, Paul in turn accuses Tien of setting them up, and Vinh suggests hiding out at a nearby abandoned temple to better protect themselves from the inevitable returning gunmen.

Any trust that Paul had in his little band of brothers is now vanquished as he feels betrayed and let down by everyone, including his own son. He takes his share of the gold and heads out into the jungle alone, determined to make it on his own and not to share his stash of the gold with anyone. As he walks away he lets out a loud wail and recites Psalm 23 Verse 4 from the Lord is my Shepherd. He seemingly becomes increasingly unhinged, ranting to himself as he cuts his way through the undergrowth with a machete, all the while now being actively pursued by four gunmen. He gets bitten by a snake, falls down an embankment and his back pack gets stuck dangling from a bamboo branch hanging well out of his reach. He decides to cut his losses and continues to walk through a riverbed leaving his back pack containing his wealth in gold bars swinging from a branch. Melvin and Otis meanwhile offer Vinh, Hedy and Simon a share of their gold for their trouble.

As Paul rambles onward in his own little world of rage, he has a vision of Norman who reminds him that it was he who in fact shot and killed him, with a single shot to the stomach from his machine gun. But Norman goes on to qualify that he recognises that his shooting was an accident on Paul's part during an ambush from an enemy sniper. The pair embrace as Norman tells him to let go of his anger and his guilt, as Paul sobs. The four gunmen soon after catch up with Paul, and force him to dig his own grave in the soft sand. Paul, now guilt free and seemingly without a care in the world, sings as he digs as the gunmen demand to know where the gold is. Paul refuses to tell them, at which point each gunman opens fire with their semi-automatic weapons and unload on Paul, riddling him with bullets.

Meanwhile, back at the temple Desroche and his gun toting henchmen arrive. He advises Otis that Tien was innocent in all of this, and orders them to hand over the gold. Otis and Hedy carry out a back pack and place it at Desroche's feet. It is revealed to contain rocks, at which point Melvin and Vinh open fire, ultimately dispensing with all the gunmen. Desroche tries to make an exit in a 4WD but the driver is shot through the windscreen and the vehicle upends itself landing on its side. Desroche clambers out armed with a pistol and a hand grenade. He shoots Otis and attempts to finish him off with the grenade which he tosses in Otis' direction. Melvin sees this and jumps on the grenade sacrificing himself. As Desroche stands over an injured Otis pointing a gun at his head, a shot rings out from the temple as David takes down Desroche with a single bullet.

In the final analysis, Vinh helps Otis cash out the gold. Melvin's widow is given his share, and Eddie's share is given to a chapter of the Black Lives Matter organisation. Hedy and Simon donate their shares to her mines and bombs clearing company in Seppo's name. Norman's remains are finally brought home with full military honours to his family. Otis visits Tien and begins to forge a new relationship with his daughter Michon. David reads a letter from Paul, which was given to Otis to give to David in the event of his death. The letter states that while he was far from the perfect father and that David's upbringing was far from loving, he tells him that he will always love him.

Well Spike Lee has done it again with 'Da 5 Bloods'! Here he delivers a film that is both timely and timeless in its portrayal of the plight and the fight of black African Americans for acceptance, recognition and equality - a fight as relevant under the Johnson and Nixon administrations of the '60's and '70's Vietnam War years as it is under the Trump administration fifty years on. This film packs a punch on many levels with Lee never being one to shy away from delving into the racial and cultural discrimination at play in the USA, or voicing his opinions of political leaders or events in history, or interweaving footage from key historical moments to add weight to his storyline. And that punch continues with a standout performance by Delroy Lindo whom some pundits are already lauding for Oscar contention with his portrayal of a man on the edge, suffering from PTSD, battling his own inner demons, and still at war with himself and seemingly all those around him. The supporting cast are all equally strong especially Chadwick Boseman, Clarke Peters, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Jonathan Majors who all bring an authenticity to their roles and proof positive that good stories about the Vietnam War can still be relevant in 2020. It's a mash up of genres with the full range of emotions and humour that bind men together, violence and gore, and with nods to Francis Ford Coppola, John Huston, Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris even and Lee's old alma mater Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. An engrossing relevant film and an entertaining watch even at a two and half hour running time that never leaves you wanting.

'Da 5 Bloods' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME : Sunday 7th June 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'The Last Days of American Crime' which went live on the streaming service on 5th June and which I saw from the comfort of my own home on Sunday 7th June.

'THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME' is a Netflix Original American action crime thriller Directed by Olivier Megaton whose previous film making credits include 'Transporter 3', 'Colombiana', 'Taken 2' and 'Taken 3' most recently in 2015. The film is based on the 2009 graphic novel of the same name by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini, and has garnered mostly negative Reviews despite topping Netflix's most watched ladder in its first weekend.

The film opens up with Graham Bricke (Edgar Ramirez) sitting on the edge of a bathtub while he douses a bound and gagged man in petrol. Naturally, he is after some information from the bound and gagged guy relating to a stash of cash. He lights up a cigar and stuffs it into the mouth of the guy still bound but by now in a state of panic. Bricke gets up and walks out of the bathroom into a neighbouring room where lie three bloodied and very dead corpses. He sits for a while and then leaves. As he exits the apartment building it explodes in a ball of flame behind him. Walking down the street, there is a topless woman dancing on top of a parked car, looters come crashing out of a store, there is gun fire and general mayhem all around. Set in the very near future (2025) we quickly learn that the government are introducing a controversial technological advancement that sends a signal to the brain that prevents anyone from committing a crime. Known as the American Peace Initiative (API), that signal will be activated nationwide in one weeks time, so rendering criminals and the Police Force redundant.

Naturally, the whole country is thrown into chaos as the clock counts down with the criminal world doing all it can to complete any unfinished business, settle old scores, commit that one last job before they physically won't be able to. The Police have all but shut border crossings into Canada, which remains a free country, and have orders to shoot to kill any opportunists trying to make a dash for it - of which there are plenty. Sat in a bar, Bricke who by now we have deduced is a career  criminal, reads a letter from the Prison authorities saying that his beloved little brother Rory (Daniel Fox) had committed suicide while serving time. Enter Shelby Dupree (Anna Brewster), an accomplished high level hacker, who quickly seduces Bricke in the very skuzzy mens toilet, and upon exiting is introduced to her fiancee Kevin Cash (Michael Pitt), the heir to the biggest crime syndicate in the city and his daddy's billion dollar+ fortune. Cash states that he served time with Rory and that his death was no suicide, instead being beaten to death by four Prison Guards with batons which he witnessed. Cash offers him one last final big US$5M pay day in which to pull off a heist the moment the API switches on, and to get even with the people who killed his brother, and then to hot foot it across the border to the safe haven of Canada.

Next up, we see Bricke taking covert camera shots of a delivery truck outside some heavily fortified bank vault and deducing that US$1B are contained therein and what a wheez it would be to heist this. All of sudden Cash's US$5M heist pails into insignificance as Bricke's US$1B heist wins the day hands down, and suddenly Bricke is in charge. All the while the clock continues to count down on API go-live day as seen in constant news coverage and digital images on almost every street corner. In the meantime, over the next couple of days there's a lot of toing and froing between Bricke, Cash and Shelby as they bicker, argue and decide on their course of action, leaving very little time in reality to plan a heist in a heavily fortified 'Money Factory' that amounts to US$1B. Bricke also seems to have access to a super desk top printer that is able to print out forged US$100 bills that are so convincing that the only way to tell that they are counterfeit is to burn them - fake money that he intends to bribe the Head of the Money Factory so gaining him access to the vault.

We also witness Shelby telling two heavy set Police Detectives the plans around the mechanics of the heist. They are really after Cash, and have little interest in Bricke. Shelby's motives surround her young sister who the cops are holding in custody until Shelby come forth with sufficient information to convince them to release her and allow her safe passage into Canada. Which they do, with a threat that if Shelby is conning them they will track down her sister and see to it that she pays the ultimate price. What Shelby doesn't know is that Bricke is looking on through the sights of a long range rifle. He later questions her, but is almost dismissive when she states that the cops are after Cash, and the story surrounding her sister. Around about this time Bricke recruits his trusted good friend Ross King (Tamer Burjaq) to be their driver.

Cash meanwhile, is left in charge with securing the wherewithal to detonate the bolts that secure the vault in the depths of the Money Factory. Channelling his best Travis Bickle from 1976's 'Taxi Driver', Cash oggles himself in the mirror stripped down to his trousers waving two cannons into the mirror and admiring himself. He needs to visit his super rich criminal king pin Daddy, whom he is estranged from and with whom he has a love/hate relationship with to secure the explosive devices. He visits his heavily guarded mansion when there is a party going on, with Bricke in tow. They meet with Rossi Dumois (Patrick Bergin), who is more that frosty at the sight of his son visiting saying 'I thought you were dead!'

What ensues is a bullet ballet in which Daddy is speared through the head by his son, Cash's shoots his sister in close range in the stomach, the party guests all flee, leaving Cash and Bricke to make their getaway through an ante-room where all manner of high tech weaponry and explosive devices are stashed, leaving behind a trail of bloodshed and Dumois head henchman Lonnie French (Brandon Auret) hot on his heels. A car chase ensues with all guns blazing, tyres screeching, culminating with the three bullet riddled vehicles all upended on their roofs.

French catches up with Bricke and Shelby at his camper trailer, ties him to a chair, beats him senseless and then invites the guy in from the first scene in the bathtub to eek out his revenge. That guy is badly burned and wrapped in ill fitting bandages that reveal the extent of his heavily scolded face and arms from which he seems to have made an almost miraculous recovery given that it was only five or six days ago, and how the Hell he survived God only knows? Anyway, that guy is Hell bent on seeing to it that Bricke goes the same way and douses him in petrol but not before burning his nipple with a cigar. He then lights a compromising photo of Bricke and Shelby and throws it on the fuel before making a quick exit. Needless to say the camper trailer erupts into a ball of flame, just as Ross King emerges to drag Bricke outta there with seconds to spare before the trailer is blown to kingdom come, with Shelby looking on, horrified from the car driven away by French. Meanwhile King has put an end to the bathtub guy.


With all this going on, at the city Police Department the commanding officer is telling a group of gathered Officers that within 48 hours their jobs are basically redundant. With no crime there is no need for law enforcement, except for a select few who will be reassigned. Enter William Sawyer (Sharlto Copley) as the down at heel desk Sergeant who asks his commanding officer if he can be reassigned to a patrol car in the closing days before the API signal goes live. In a heartbeat, he is told yes, and off he drives to patrol the streets, whereupon he is jeered, heckled and his vehicle bombarded with all manner of projectiles from an increasingly volatile public. Back at Police HQ he volunteers to have a chip implanted in his neck that is an instant API signal blocker.

The group of Cash, Bricke, King and Shelby all regroup. The day of the mega heist arrives as the clock is counting down on the final 24 hours. Cash and Bricke make their way to the Money Factory and are allowed access because of the bribe being offered to the head honcho there. Cash is concealed under the vehicle and out of sight. Bricke parks up in the basement and hands over the bribe money. As he walks back towards his car, the head honcho ignites a note to test its authenticity and quickly discovers it's fake. At this point Cash emerges from under the car all guns blazing and a fierce fire fight breaks out with the pair driving the vehicle into a goods lift. Meanwhile, King is driving a truck into the bowels of a neighbouring building. Bricke and Cash end up in the basement vault and using the explosive devices secured from daddy's secret armoury they explode the reinforced hinges off the vault door and gain access to a US$1B payday. King in the meantime has blasted his way through the back end of the vault and forklifts the stash of cash into the back of his waiting truck.

With all of this going on Shelby has infiltrated the API control tower with the aim of disabling the signal for thirty minutes giving the rest of the crew just enough time to load up the truck and get outta Dodge. What Shelby doesn't count on is that Sawyer is on patrol in the building and apprehends her for acting suspiciously when returning from attempting to override the signal from the computer banks. They get into a fight just as the signal goes live, and Shelby is incapacitated. Sawyer overpowers her, they tussle, fight, roll around on the floor, smash through glass shelves and tables, which results in Sawyer falling off a table and getting impaled through the neck by a shard of glass. Shelby then places an explosive devise on the computer banks which control the now live API signal and makes a quick getaway.

With the truck of loot now safely outta there, Cash, Bricke and King reunite at a secret location. There, Cash shoots and kills King, and then shoots Bricke in the stomach. Cash reveals that he has an inbuilt natural immunity, mentally and physically, to the API signal and that it was in fact him who killed Bricke's brother Rory in prison by beating him to death with his bare hands in a fight staged by the Prison Guards who all looked on just for the sport. He also adds that he knows that Shelby and he are screwing, and when he asks Bricke for any comment he blows his left ear off with a shotgun. Bricke is left defenceless by the API signal. What Cash hadn't counted on is that the two cops who Shelby days earlier had informed about the pending heist are waiting just parked out of sight witnessing all of this unfold but within gun shot range. One of the cops takes pot shots at Cash, disabling him, and then finishes him off with another clean round. They walk up to Bricke and seeing the extent of his injuries leave him to die. As the cops sit back in their vehicle celebrating their success in thwarting the robbery and dispensing with the perpetrators, up sidles Bricke and unloads every round of his semi-automatic pistol through the front windscreen riddling the pair in a hail of bullets, dead!

At this point the API tower has exploded so rendering the signal defunct. This enables Bricke to mount the truck and drive towards the boarder with Canada. Shelby meanwhile is walking bloodied, and dazed out the API tower followed by a number of armed guards all demanding that she halts in her tracks. As she crosses the road with six or so guards stood to her rear, all pointing their weapons at her, Bricke rocks up in his truck and takes out parked cars, concrete bollards and the armed guards all at once. Shelby gets in the truck and they make their way across the border into Canada but not before crashing through Police cordon's, border patrol and heavily fortified check points to come to rest at the docks as the sun rises. Bricke is drained and near death, and sure enough just after Shelby announces her undying love for him he dies at the steering wheel. Shelby makes a getaway with a holdall full of cash and the ashes of Rory. We later see Shelby and her younger sister reunited, with the pair down by some isolated lake in the Canadian mountain wilderness as Shelby scatters Rory's ashes.

I couldn't help reading the many Reviews of 'The Last Days of American Crime', which for the most part absolutely annihilate this offering, before watching it for myself to see what all the fuss was about. And sure enough, those Reviews pretty much have nailed it. At a running time of nigh on two and a half hours, the Director clearly believes that 'more is more', when in fact 'less is more' by trimming a good 45 minutes would have made a more efficient, coherent film. The film has been panned by Critics for its depiction of Police brutality, violent content and the fact that its release couldn't have come at a worse time when the world has gone into protest over the George Floyd killing at the hands of the Minneapolis Police on 25th May. The first half of the film plods along at a snails pace where little happens and by the time the second half clicks into gear its all too much, all too late by which time you've already checked out! Often incoherent; the plot has more holes in it than Swiss cheese; the dialogue is at times both completely non-sensical and boring; there is little chemistry between the three principle characters; and the storyline is derivative, formulaic, unimaginative and we have seen this kind of stuff a hundred times already, only done much better. Watch it at your peril because you may just end up as incapacitated mentally and physically as if you had been zapped by the API yourself.

'The Last Days of American Crime' merits one clap of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-