New Jersey Stage Issue 72 | Page 8

ternoon. Indeed, it’s most involving when we’re simply hanging out with its elderly heroes as they loaf through the foliage, bickering with one another and reminiscing about times past. There’s a platonic romance between these men of the sort you find in the westerns of Ford and Hawks, which makes it all the more impactful when gold fever leads to the inevitable fracturing of the group. The designation of the quartet of screenwriters - Danny Bilson & Paul De Meo, and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee - suggests that the initial script was penned by Bilson and De Meo, with Lee and his Chi-Raq and BlacKkKlansman collaborator Willmott giving it a rewrite. In its more genre-flavored sequences, Da 5 Bloods plays like a relic of the ‘80s, with the sort of simplistic storytelling that dogged that decade, during which Bilson and De Meo penned scripts for such video store faves as Trancers and Zone Troopers. Flashbacks to the war are accompanied by a Terrence NJ STAGE - ISSUE 72 INDEX NEXT ARTICLE 8